British politics has been characterised by a combination of turbulence and stagnation for a number of years. The country has had three prime ministers in two years, all from a party that has been in power since 2010. For as long as Rishi Sunak has been in Downing Street, opinion polls have shown the Conservatives trailing far enough behind Labour to suggest that Sir Keir Starmer will take over at the next general election. Yet the opposition radiates insecurity about this advantage.
Cracks have reached the surface in recent weeks, first with the messy dismantling of a flagship green investment policy, then with the even messier repudiation of two parliamentary candidates embroiled in rows about antisemitism. Whether that wobble will have a sustained impact on national polling is hard to foresee. It will affect the Commons in the short term because one of the renounced prospective MPs, Azhar Ali, is running in the Rochdale byelection in two weeks. Now there will be no official Labour candidate on the ballot paper. There is less controversy clouding two byelections this Thursday, but those contests also express features of the underlying instability in British politics.
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