{"id":776322,"date":"2026-02-20T04:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/776322\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T04:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T04:16:17","slug":"why-britain-struggles-to-hold-onto-its-prime-ministers-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/776322\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Britain struggles to hold onto its prime ministers \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron\u2019s sudden departure from No. 10 in 2016 after Britain\u2019s vote to leave the European Union triggered a period of unprecedented churn in British politics. None of his successors \u2014\u00a0Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak \u2014 served a full parliamentary term. Three were ousted from high office by their own side.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t always this way: Prime ministers used to last.<\/p>\n<p>Margaret Thatcher completed 11 years at the top, spending the whole of the 1980s in No. 10. Her successor John Major lasted six-and-a-half years, and Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair enjoyed more than a decade in power.<\/p>\n<p>So what\u2019s going on? From acute cost-of-living pressures to a weak No. 10, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/podcast\/westminster-insider\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">POLITICO\u2019s Westminster Insider podcast<\/a> asked historians and former political advisers why it now seems impossible for a British prime minister to last very long at the top.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the economy, stupid \u2014 David Runciman, political historian<\/p>\n<p>David Runciman is a political historian and host of the \u201cPast, Present, Future\u201d podcast. He believes Britain\u2019s instability is not unique \u2014 and is driven by a global cost-of-living squeeze.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIncumbency is harder because the world is a harder place to govern,\u201d he says, pointing to the U.S., which has turfed presidents out after a single term in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron\u2019s sudden departure from No. 10 in 2016 after Britain\u2019s vote to leave&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[226639,5109,802,748,2001,2766,23522,6217,2438,33,393,728,4884,476,113989,807,1749,27602,2452,1144,5111,5112,712,11655,27005,16,15,49,1764,98158],"class_list":["post-776322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-ben-judah","tag-boris-johnson","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-communications","tag-culture","tag-david-cameron","tag-david-lammy","tag-department","tag-elections","tag-england","tag-environment","tag-great-britain","tag-inflation","tag-john-major","tag-keir-starmer","tag-liz-truss","tag-margaret-thatcher","tag-media","tag-northern-ireland","tag-parliament","tag-rishi-sunak","tag-scotland","tag-theresa-may","tag-tony-blair","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states","tag-wales","tag-westminster-insider"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116101027219718783","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}