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The forced departure of the sixth British prime minister in 10 years is being interpreted as yet one more symptom of Britain’s chronic political instability. Comparisons are made with Italy, though the current Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been in office for three years and eight months.
Such hand-wringing misses the point that a country able to rapidly change its leaders by democratic means is far better off than one stuck with the same dud. Longevity in office is not necessarily a sign of successful leadership: witness Vladimir Putin firmly in power since 1999 despite launching a disastrous war. Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, who died in 2020, probably holds some sort of record as the despotic prime minister of Bahrain for 50 years and 300 days.
All recent British prime ministers have failed to cope with, still less reverse, the country’s comparative decline compared to the rest of the world. This failure has gathered pace since the financial crisis of 2008, though its roots go back much further to the first half of the 20th century.
