As the country prepares for its seventh prime minister in a decade, some are asking: is Britain ungovernable? I’d like to pose a parallel but meaningfully different question: is there a government that wishes to govern Britain? Every government since at least 1979 has practised one form or another of this politics of abdication. Andy

The favourite to succeed, Andy Burnham, seems to believe in nothing: he has tended to go along with the policies of whoever was leading his party at the time.

As the country prepares for its seventh prime minister in a decade, some are asking: is Britain ungovernable? I’d like to pose a parallel but meaningfully different question: is…