The Italian Renaissance diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli is credited with inventing ruthless politics. His most famous work, The Prince, published in 1513, taught rulers how to get power and hang onto it.
I don’t know whether Wes Streeting keeps a copy by his bedside for his nighttime reading, but it wouldn’t surprise me after his antics over the last few days. Mr Streeting’s resignation as Health Secretary paved the way for No10 hopeful Andy Burnham to find a possible way back to Parliament to challenge Keir Starmer for the premiership.
Wes Streeting said he did not want to see a leadership election until all the players were on the field to give Labour a proper and wide-ranging debate about what and who the party is for. Very noble of him.
But then he proceeded to skewer his chief opponent by suggesting the UK should one day rejoin the EU. Very Machiavellian of him. It was similar language to the sentiment Mr Burnham had expressed at the Labour Party conference in September, and one he was hoping everyone had forgotten while he campaigned in the Brexity Greater Manchester seat of Makerfield.
Mentioning EU membership will do Mr Streeting no harm with the electorate, which, in this case, is Labour Party members, should he end up standing for leader.
More than a third of them want to rejoin the EU, too. But in a head-to-head with the PM, he would most certainly lose. YouGov puts the former Cabinet minister a staggering 50 points behind – with Mr Starmer on 65 per cent and Mr Streeting on just 15.
Which makes the prospect of Mr Starmer being PM after all these shenanigans still worth an outside bet at the bookies.
But if he isn’t, it means we will be on our fifth PM in four years. Which raises the question of whether Britain is becoming ungovernable.
Keir Starmer’s biographer and unofficial spin doctor, Tom Baldwin, says a hysterical media is responsible for all this chopping and changing, which is typical of the political classes. Always blame the medium for conveying the message.
True, successive prime ministers have been dealt a few bad hands, some of them not their fault, beginning with the 2008 financial crash.The
We've had two outstanding PMs in the last 40 years. This explains the mess we are in | Getty Images
The Brexit referendum caused more instability and saw the downfall of two PMs, David Cameron and Theresa May. International shocks such as Covid and wars in Ukraine and Iran piled on the pain.
The social media frenzy for instant solutions to complex problems has not helped. It is one reason why our two-party democracy has become five. Voters get disillusioned with the governing lot quicker than they did and will turn to new kids on the block for answers.
But politicians must also recognise their part in this. In the last 40 years, we have had only two outstanding prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair – which is why they are the only ones to each win election hat-tricks. That is not necessarily support for what they did, but a recognition of their ability to do it.
They both came into No10 with a set of foundational beliefs – political philosophies which steered their policy decisions. In Mrs Thatcher’s case, it was free market competition, in Tony Blair’s Third Way, cherry picking the best left and right had to offer.
This was summed up in his slogan: “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.” Coming down hard on crime is from the Right, addressing the social conditions which made them turn to crime from the Left. No other PMs have had such guiding principles. And that’s why we are in the mess we are.