Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[mongers]

I see Wes Streeting has folded, so I guess the coronation is on?

There was talk of the Starmtroopers trying to get a continuity candidate to challenge - probably Darren Jones

But I doubt they have the numbers. So it definitely looks like it - and the scenes today are so weird for our system of him sweeping down on (an unusually efficient and timely) Avanti train, meeting the parliamentary Labour Party en masse like a conquering hero.

I did quite enjoy the heckles at his swearing in. Desmond Swayne's "Rome is saved!" (fantastic article in the Times about Burnham's Catholicism which I'll post later), then someone shouting "he's not the messiah" and Burnham replying that he was a "naughty boy" instead

Knowing Sir Desmond, he's our local MP here in New Forest West, I suspect this is more along the lines of Western civilisation is doomed and Burnham will just be another short-lived emperor? 

Well that's my take anyway.

[Syt]

Labour and Social Democrats went downhill after pipe smoking went out of fashion.

[Sheilbh]

I have a huge soft spot for Harold Wilson - and indeed Schmidt.

Apparently there's been a trend recently of Harold Wilson edits on TikTok. I have no idea what the youths are up to, but assume this is a bit like the benign version of them doing edits about obscure European fascists from the 1920s. E.g. the Harold Wilson summer edit - cannot emphasise enough I have no idea what's going on with young people
https://www.tiktok.com/@politicsprincess/video/7642682066215144706?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7636879993146131990

Although in Wilson's case the pipe was, in part, a bit of PR. He preferred cigars but the pipe made him look like more of a man of the people so he smoked them publicly and it became part of his brand like the HP sauce, holidays on the Scilly Isles and the Ganex coat.

He's quite a sad figure in the end though - probably the last PM who chose the timing of his own departure but it's quite possible that was because the dementia he suffered later in life had already started and he'd already lost half a yard. And the perception always was that he was very clever, very able but hadn't really accomplished much except keeping the Labour Party together - I think revisionists now challenge this. But also he wasn't a prosperous man, before Thatcher PMs didn't really earn a great deal of money outside of office doing speeches for Americans and until Major they didn't go big on non-executive directorships either and he probably wouldn't have been able to do that anyway given his dementia.

So in the end by the early 90s his family consider selling off basically all of his private papers to pay for his care - I think McGill University in Canada was interested in acquiring - which caused a bit of alarm in the Cabinet Office. There was basically a bit of a sense that the papers should stay in the country but also that it was a bit undignified so they quietly arranged the private funding for (I think) Oxford to acquire them and also quietly developed a system to help provide a bit more of a financial cushion for ex-MPs. Not an issue now with ex-PMs earning hundreds of thousands in the private sector (except for Liz Truss who has to sell her wares trying to become a MAGA influencer because no-one is going to pay for her pearls of wisdom on leadership) - but I think that's just created a new set of issues and is equally undignified.

[Valmy]

I have a huge soft spot for Harold Wilson - and indeed Schmidt.

He did get name dropped on Revolver.

Don't ask me what I want it for
(Taxman Mister Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more
(Taxman Mister Heath)

[HVC]

Funny that pipes were seen as a Joe blow accoutrement. Surely that's still not a thing?

[Sheilbh]

He did get name dropped on Revolver.

Don't ask me what I want it for
(Taxman Mister Wilson)
If you don't want to pay some more
(Taxman Mister Heath)

In retrospect, the 95% supertax on high earners was possibly a bit much

Funny that pipes were seen as a Joe blow accoutrement. Surely that's still not a thing?

Yeah so my uncle smoked a pipe and I would associate it, way back when, in Liverpool with merchant sailors and the docks and also farmers (thinking of those jobs, maybe because it left your hands free so it was a way to smoke if you were doing manual labour?). I think it was very much seen as working class. Especially compared with cigars (Wilson's preference in private).

But you're right now I think a pipe is purely an affectation - I don't know when I last saw a pipe. But I love the smell of pipe tobacco.

[garbon]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq6188775g5o

Sturgeon and Gove to team up for reality TV 'wargame'

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon is to team up with ex-Conservative minister Michael Gove in a new reality television show.

Sturgeon will serve as deputy prime minister, with Gove as prime minister, at the head of a fictional UK government at war with Russia.

The four-part Sky TV show, The Wargame, will also feature former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy as foreign secretary and ex-Tory MP Dame Penny Mordaunt as defence secretary.

The cross-party cabinet will hold Cobra-style emergency meetings following a fictional Russian attack on UK soil.

Sky's Phil Edgar-Jones said the show would "challenge some of the most experienced political and military minds in the country to imagine how they might respond under threat of war".

He added: "At a time when we are facing increasing threats from all sides, this series couldn't be more timely."

Sturgeon's appearance on the show has been announced following her estranged husband's admission that he embezzled more than £400,000 from the SNP - prompting criticism from political opponents.

Peter Murrell, who served as SNP chief executive for more than 20 years, is due to be sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to using the funds to buy goods including cars, a motorhome and cosmetics.

Sturgeon has denied any knowledge of his crimes and said she was "deceived, betrayed and lied to" by Murrell.

Tory Douglas Lumsden, the newly elected Aberdeen South MP, said: "Eyebrows will be raised at Nicola Sturgeon's decision to cash in on a lucrative TV show while her ex-husband awaits sentencing for defrauding SNP members out of at least £400k.

"This new series claims to put the sharpest political minds to the test. Let's just hope they don't ask contestants to spot a giant motorhome parked a few feet away – or the former SNP leader could be heading for an early exit."

Scottish Labour's deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: "This bizarre career move won't distract anyone from the unanswered questions Nicola Sturgeon has to answer about her husband's theft."

Sturgeon has been asked to comment.

The Wargame - to be aired in September - will also feature Labour's Baroness Harriet Harman as home secretary, Tory Baroness Sayeeda Warsi as attorney general and Labour Baroness Ayesha Hazarika as director of communications.

Retired British Army general Sir Richard Barrons will serve as chief of defence staff and former diplomat Lord Kim Darroch will feature as national security adviser.

The UK cabinet will be opposed by a team of Russia experts, led by British writer Keir Giles.

There will also be international roles with Anthony Scaramucci playing the US secretary of state and Lord George Robertson as Nato secretary general.

WTF is this?

[Sheilbh]

The podcast was actually good - Ben Wallace playing PM, Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary, Amber Rudd as Home Secretary, James Heappey as Defence Secretary, Baroness Kennedy as Attorney General, Lord Sedwill as National Security Advisor, General Sir Richard Barrons as Chief of the Defence Staff, Jim Murphy as Chancellor and Victoria MacInness as Comms Director etc.

Slightly eye-opening/concerning - so hopefully this will raise awareness.

I blame The Rest is Politics for allowing Anthony Scaramucci to parley his way into being a regular commentator about the US despite him offering, to my mind, basically no insight.

[Sheilbh]

Didn't see it live but slightly ridiculous that Sky had a helicopter over the Avanti train into Euston, like Burnham approaching the Finland Station Very stressful day for Avanti PR I imagine - and they did very well and were only 20 minutes late (so he can do delay and repay compensation), I was delayed by over two hours at the weekend


Also this:

Nikolaj🇺🇦🇵🇸
@nikicaga
10: 33 The Cannibal has left his lair

10: 54 The Mancunian Ogre has boarded the train at Piccadilly

11: 04 The Tiger has arrived at Stockport

11: 13 The Monster has had breakfast at Wilmslow

11: 32 The Tyrant has crossed Crewe

11: 44 The usurper was seen in Stoke

11: 53 Burnham is in Stafford, but will never reach the capital

12: 09 Andy will be in our city within the hour

13: 00 The Makersfield MP has arrived at Watford Junction

13: 09 The next Prime Minister has made his triumphant entry at London Euston amid his faithful subjects

Edit: Also the brutality of politics - less than half a dozen cabinet ministers were with Starmer when he gave his resignation statement. Looks like all of them - including Reeves and the Chief Whip - were in Westminster Hall to welcome Burnham. As Johnson put it, when the herd moves...

Edit: I also slightly struggle with all the "decent man" stuff about Starmer. I don't know - I struggle to reconcile decency with the behaviour towards Diane Abbott or Fazia Shaheen. And I've said it before - but not seen any commentators make this point (possibly because of their role/position in media) but I always found his repeated statements about being sorry for x scandal, being furious about it, but not taking responsibility and leaving a trail of underlings behind him (three chiefs of staff, six directors of communication etc) always came across like that really bad boss that everyone's had at some point or other.

[HVC]

Just read that Larry the cat has outlasted 6 PMs

[Valmy]

Nikolaj🇺🇦🇵🇸
@nikicaga
10: 33 The Cannibal has left his lair

10: 54 The Mancunian Ogre has boarded the train at Piccadilly

11: 04 The Tiger has arrived at Stockport

11: 13 The Monster has had breakfast at Wilmslow

11: 32 The Tyrant has crossed Crewe

11: 44 The usurper was seen in Stoke

11: 53 Burnham is in Stafford, but will never reach the capital

12: 09 Andy will be in our city within the hour

13: 00 The Makersfield MP has arrived at Watford Junction

13: 09 The next Prime Minister has made his triumphant entry at London Euston amid his faithful subjects

 

[Josquius]

I'm late with this but count binface on sky news.... The absolute state of British journalism.

[mongers]

Farage is in a hole over this five million quid 'gift' and his media blitz today confirms he's not stopped digging. 

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think I mentioned at the time that I think that story has legs and it is being picked up by everyone not just the usual suspects.

This may well be wrong, but I increasingly suspect there won't be a PM Farage any time soon. There's that story. There's just something "off" about Reform at the minute too - they keep picking duff candidates, there's lots of internal briefing against each other, Farage seems very tetchy. I've said before but Farage has never been able to buid an enduring, sustainable political party and I wonder if that's part of it and Reform are just hitting the growing pains/implosion stage that all of Farage's previous parties have hit at a certain point. On the "gift" thing I wouldn't be surprised if he throws the towel in and resigns rather than face more and more questions about it - again he has form for resigning and withdrawing. (I don't want to say that all of these problems started when Reform accepted Robert Jenrick - but it sort of feels like maybe they did...)

I also think Restore are a bigger threat to Reform than I'd previously thought. I think it puts Reform in the same bind that they've put the Tories in in the past. And I think they are really, really struggling to respond (and as we've seen with the Tories, as we see with Labour - it is a challenging dilemma). But I think part of that is what drove "pure cold rage" and his response to Nowak which I think he got really wrong in a way that has possibly put some people who would be open to Reform off voting for him (against the wishes of the family, too vulgar).

The other factor that is important is that I think Badenoch has the right strategy which is not chasing Reform and allowing Farage to set the pace - this is why she was the right choice v Jenrick. I think she's becoming more effective as a leader.

This is arguably one of the reasons for Burnham to consider an early election. Reform aren't in a great place, Greens have fallen away, the Tories have stabilised but not recovered - if he wants his own mandate, this could be the best opportunity (and so much of politics is about timing - see Wes Streeting). Plus there's a lot of evidence now of anti-Reform tactical voting and if the next election was going to boil down to who do you most dislike Farage or Starmer I think that could be risky. I think now the anti-Reform tactical voting may hold up a bit more. I'm not sure what'll happen on the left because I can't judge Burnham yet - but I think on the right at the minute my bet for the next election would be that Badenoch wins the battle for hegemony on the right and the Tories return as the largest party and I think that's more dangerous for Labour.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting piece from Lewis Goodall which I think gets part of the problem with Starmer. And I totally agree on the "happy warrior" point. I think there's a strand of poliician who think they projecting seriousness, but it actually reads quite badly with the public (Starmer, Sunak, May, Brown, Major) who like people who are up for a scrap (Wilson, Thatcher, Blair, Johnson - and I think both Burnham and Badenoch) and look like they're enjoying their job.

There was a comment someone made about how this interacts with authenticity - they were speaking in the US context - which is really weird. Because basically the public like people who act normal/authentically in incredibly weird/inauthentic situations (Clinton, Obama, Blair, Trump) - they're all people who I suspect feed off the energy of crowds and pressing the flesh and pressure. While politicians who respond to those very weird scenarios like a normal person come accross as stilted and inauthentic (Clinton, Starmer, Sunak), because that is the normal thing to do But in the age of authenticity the politicians who do well and land with the public are the ones are absolute freaks who can enjoy those weird environments/moments and perform authenticity.

Starmer resigns: The Politician who hated Politics
In this most political age, he was doomed from the beginning.
Lewis Goodall
Jun 23, 2026

In February 2020, I was at the Labour leadership launch in Manchester, as it happens—probably, in retrospect, a superspreader event. Two things from that day stay with me, both minor portents of why the man on the stage, Keir Starmer, would eventually fail.

The first was a phrase he kept returning to. Starmer—the unity candidate—was at pains to stress that he wanted to be a political healer. He gravely and repeatedly intoned that Labour ought "not to trash the last Labour government, nor the best of the last five years." Untainted by the Blair-Brown wars and connected to the Corbyn project through his place in the Shadow Cabinet, but clearly not of Corbynism, Starmer seemed to glimpse an opportunity: to unite the left and move beyond its old traumas. "Jeremy Corbyn is a colleague, and a friend," he said.

It didn't last long.

Starmer's attitude to the left was only the first of many reversals. But in the end, his slow march to Hammer of the Left status helped bury him. In the latter part of his premiership, he effectively set the central question of British politics: who was best placed to defeat Reform? It was a test which, I wrote at the time, he was unlikely to pass. To win such a battle, he needed to assemble the broadest possible progressive coalition, exactly as Andy Burnham would later do in Makerfield. Instead, forever chasing newspapers that offered only grudging and temporary support, Starmer alienated many of those most naturally sympathetic to him. In setting a question he could not answer, he was, as so often, all tactics and no strategy. It is an underappreciated part of his demise.

But there was something more prosaic that day which, in retrospect, hinted at the dangers to come. After the speech—a workmanlike affair—I went backstage to catch up with the candidate. I'd met him a couple of times during his stint as Shadow Brexit Secretary, knew some of his staff, and was intrigued by him politically. I wanted to find out what made him tick.

So I asked him a few fairly standard political questions. Where did he sit on the spectrum from Corbyn to Blair? Which Labour leaders from the past, or politicians more generally, did he most admire? Which political books were his favourites? Who were his political heroes?

He scoffed. He tutted. He looked genuinely aghast.

Then he told me off.

"Lewis, these are just the sort of political games we've got to get away from. I'm not interested in this Westminster stuff."

I've thought a lot about that conversation since. I think it directly foreshadows what we've seen play out these last 24 hours.

There is much I admire about Keir Starmer, not least because he comes from a background not entirely dissimilar to my own. He is the son of the professional working class, the first in his family to go to university. When I hear him talk about class, background and social mobility, it resonates with me. Not least because of this, having a strong sense of all he'd overcome, I wanted him to succeed. An aide of his once said to me: "Lewis, he hates Westminster. Can you imagine how many sub-grade posh bullshitters he's met throughout his life in the law? How much of that he sees here?"

Brother, I thought, now you're taking my language. I agree with him about Westminster. So does much of the country. It is one of the great failures of his political career that he never managed to convince voters that he was more outsider than in. But when I think back to that conversation, I increasingly wonder whether it revealed something deeper. Not that he disliked Westminster. Something else. Something rather unusual in a politician who entered public life so late.

That he didn't really like politics at all.

Most politicians, especially Labour politicians, will happily spend hours talking about their heroes, fantasy cabinets and political ideas. Politics is not merely their profession; it is their hobby, their obsession, often their entire intellectual framework. Yet here was a man who seemed faintly irritated by the very suggestion that he might even be interested in it.

And it wasn't just me. Over the next six years, some of his closest colleagues would privately spend countless hours trying to work out what it was that Keir Starmer actually thought. What his politics actually were. If his government often appeared diffuse and intellectually rudderless, this was why. It was less a coherent administration than a collection of competing instincts and impulses, presided over by a leader who seemed reluctant to arbitrate between them. One senior official once put it to me that they had no idea what the Prime Minister would think about any given issue. Neither, they added, did anyone else. He was actively suspicious of ideas. He once assured a colleague that "there's no such thing as Starmerism and there never will be.' Truer words were never spoken.

Yet because politics is a battle of ideas, in taking such an attitude Starmer in effect was a political pacifist. But it wasn't just sniffiness about ideology which was the problem, it fused with something peculiar to him- a compacted self-belief.

Keir Starmer does not emit ego, he has neither the swagger of a Boris Johnson nor the breezy ease of a David Cameron. But in his own way, Starmer's self-belief eclipses each of them. One of the reasons Starmer chose not to talk in the language of ideas is that he didn't need them. It was no co-incidence that the Labour manifesto's cover was emblazoned with an image of Starmer and "Change" next to his bespectacled face. In his own mind, he is what change was. He thought he was enough. That the Tories were so reckless (true) feckless (truer) and riven (truest) that his competence, probity and integrity would be sufficient to rest Britain from its malaise. But he was never going to be enough. Britain's economic and political ills were always too great to be rescued by better management administration. The removal of the Tories was a necessary but not sufficient condition.

And worse while he didn't much like thinking about politics, he didn't like doing politics much either. Ie he was not even a retail politician, railing against the ideological socialist traditions of Labour. Instead he looked uncomfortable doing almost anything political: campaigning, making arguments, managing factions, working a room. Because he was.

And the public sensed it. Voters like happy warriors. They like politicians who look as though they enjoy what they are doing. It reassures them. Burnham has that quality, whether he is teasing a couple of old dears on the doorstep or calling a Tory MP "a naughty boy" in the Commons. Blair had it. Thatcher had it. Johnson had it. Trump and Mamdani have it. Whatever their faults, they appeared energised by politics itself. Starmer never did.

That is not to say he disliked power. Quite the opposite. He seemed to enjoy being Prime Minister: the office, the responsibility, the seriousness of it all. It suited him. He could apply his formidable intelligence and work ethic. But leadership is about more than chairing meetings, attending summits or diligently working through a red box. Being prime minister means you have to stay as prime minister, which requires sustaining a political project. You have to cajole, persuade, convince and inspire. That, ultimately, is what Labour MPs have judged him unable to do. Starmer treated politics as a science- (work + competence=success) when it is, in reality, the deepest of the arts.

What is so tragic about the demise of the Starmer premiership is how unusual it is. Most Prime Ministers meet their end via the ballot box (Sunak), scandal (Johnson), political /constitutional crisis (May) or being Liz Truss (Truss), in fact a financial crisis. None of this is quite true for Starmer. It's ended for him because his colleagues, from left to right, privately largely agree that he is temperamentally ill suited to be at the apex of politics. I have been struck at how universal that assessment is. That must be a painful verdict for a man who has achieved so much through hard work and endeavour, to whom nothing was ever handed. But the verdict is no less true for the pain. The line between self-belief and self-delusion can be slender. Starmer spent years treating politics as a distraction from government. In the end, he discovered what every successful prime minister eventually learns: politics is government. You can abhor politics, but in the end, politics will abhor you.

I would say I find the idea that you could have reached the point of leading a political party - especially Labour - and not have political heroes, or favourite books or inspirations is so, so weird (and not just "Westminster stuff"). It reminds me of him telling Tom McTague that he'd only said Harold Wilson was the Labour politician he admired most because he needed someone other than Attlee or Blair and that he didn't really think about any of his predecessors when walking up the staircase with their portraits. Or for example that he claims not to have a favourite book or a favourite poem. I can't tell if it's just someone desperate to guard themselves, or someone who is spectacularly incurious.

(And slightly relieved to hear that Burnham's favourite poet is Larkin and his favourite book is Middlemarch - solid picks from our first English Lit grad to-be-PM.)