The last full-time job I had before moving to Robb Report was editing the Evening Standard, London’s preeminent newspaper. We had a circulation of over half a million, and in many ways had been the city’s collective voice for nearly 200 years (it was launched in 1827). I joined as editor-in-chief in 2023, and I inherited a fabulous collection of great columnists, who wrote about national, international, and local politics, from a broad range of ideological standpoints. We had liberals, conservatives, and all breeds in between. They included Ari Emanuel, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bryan Cranston, Chelsea Handler, Alec Baldwin, the acclaimed atheist Richard Dawkins, former Times editor Simon Jenkins, Boris’s sister Rachel Johnson, former Number 10 strategist Guto Harri, and dozens of political experts as well as the internationally famous DJ Fat Tony.
We also had Andy Burnham, who, a few days ago, in case you didn’t know, became Britain’s latest prime minister, replacing the well-meaning but increasingly isolated Keir Starmer (now universally recognized as Britain’s latest forgotten man). Having been afforded the kind of coronation, which is rare in British politics, Burnham takes charge at a time when the national psyche is battered, bruised, and severely overtaxed. In the last six years Britain has had eight prime ministers, which has meant we are now considered to be more politically unstable than Italy, which used to change its leaders every other month or so. Since 2010 we have had—deep breath—Gordon Brown (Labour); David Cameron (Conservative); Theresa May (Conservative); Boris Johnson (Conservative); Liz Truss (Conservative); Rishi Sunak (Conservative); Starmer (Labour); and now Burnham (very Labour). Because we as a nation tend to have an overheated sense of our own importance, the British tend to think everyone is fascinated by the political shenanigans in Westminster, although I think it would be fair to assume many people in the world still think Tony Blair is PM. But we now have Burnham, and the nation is holding its breath.
