The line of ex-prime ministers at the Cenotaph ceremony is getting embarrassingly long. Since 2016, Britain has added four to the invite list and is about add a fifth. We wouldn’t wish for any of them to return to their former office. In any objectively scored league table of post-war British PMs, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, and now Starmer would all struggle to get out of the relegation zone. This run of bad leaders is one of the central mysteries of British politics, and perhaps we don’t ponder it enough. Is it an unlucky streak, like getting tails five times in a row when you bet on heads? That seems implausible. There is probably a shrinking number of talented candidates. Even so, you’d think we might get lucky now and again.
Some argue that our attritional democratic environment makes even good leaders look mediocre. I do not find this convincing. The idea that Britain in 2026 is ‘ungovernable’ and that, in more stable times, Keir Starmer would be acclaimed as a decent or even half-decent prime minister seems far-fetched. Starmer’s inadequacy transcends the moment. He has proved timelessly abysmal at the job. To a slightly lesser extent you could say similar of Theresa May, or – well, let’s not go on.
