Witnessing the abrupt ending to a political career is never an edifying spectacle. Some defeated or disgraced leaders handle it better than others, but the level of ego inflation that leads people into electoral politics in the first place does not tend to be accompanied by grace or humility. Many Americans have spent most of the last decade fruitlessly longing for the final and conclusive downfall of our current president, as in the last act of an action thriller. I suspect that no such event will ever occur, but if it does it probably won’t follow that sort of script or deliver a satisfactory catharsis.
Keir Starmer’s predecessor as British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, will be remembered by historians largely as a footnote. He was the wealthiest person ever to hold that office, as well as the first person of color. He presided over a catastrophic electoral defeat nearly two years ago that consigned the Conservative Party, after 14 years in power, to a distant third- or fourth-place status in the upside-down universe of post-Brexit U.K. politics.
