The rise and fall of Keir Starmer: where did it all go wrong?

Historians will puzzle over this one. Of the six prime ministers that have led Britain over the last decade, with a seventh now on the way, it will be the fall of Keir Starmer that will most perplex the political analysts of the future. They will ponder a man who won a landslide victory in July 2024 only to be pushed out less than two years later , having started no illegal wars, having triggered no grave economic crises, having been accused of no scandalous act of corruption. They will scratch their heads at a PM who paid the ultimate political price, even though few could point to the single, obvious political crime he had committed. So what did for Starmer – and what legacy, if any – does he leave behind? Perhaps most important, what does the fleeting premiership of the outgoing Labour leader portend for whoever takes his place? UK prime minister Keir Starmer announces resignation – video Start with his undoing, which was a function of both the man and his times. Plenty will say, and have said in recent days, that Starmer’s failure was pre-ordained, for the simple reason that he was not a politician and had no aptitude for politics. At face value, that statement is obviously absurd. No one rises to the top of a major political party and then wins a 174-seat parliamentary majority by accident. …