Keir Starmer is gone as British Prime Minister, giving an emotional resignation speech yesterday – his leaving prompted by a damaging by-election in February followed by a devastating May election, and a round of high-profile resignations, and then Andy Burnham’s decisive victory in the Makerfield by-election.
The scandal around Starmer’s appointment, against Foreign Office advice, of Peter Mandelson as the UK ambassador to the US certainly didn’t help, given the former Labour advisor’s Epstein connections. Instead of the “no more soap opera politics” promised, it was a distraction, and one which pointed to issues with the Prime Minister’s credibility.