Keir Starmer resigns (Image: Getty)
On the day Margaret Thatcher resigned, my teacher wheeled the big TV into the classroom, and my friends and I watched as political history was made. Our understanding of politics came mostly from the TV show Newsround, but we all knew we were watching something very important. And, for the next eight prime ministers, I watched their speeches live and remember them all as if they were a few years ago.
But when it came to Keir Starmer‘s turn on Monday, I was asleep. Completely fast asleep and dead to the world. I emerged from my slumber approximately an hour later and learned of his departure on social media. Then I read through articles written by my esteemed colleagues on this website. This wasn’t, sadly, a comment on Starmer’s leadership of the country over the past few years.
It was just because, as someone with incurable bowel cancer, I’d spent a lot of time in hospital the previous week, including having chemotherapy and immunotherapy, and I was very tired. (Waking up at 5am due to the sun bursting through my window, and not being able to get back to sleep until 7am, didn’t help.)
So, in a similar way to how bowel cancer has seen me miss out on a million fun things since I was diagnosed three years ago, I missed out on witnessing political history being made.
It’s made me think backwards, and forwards, to how the simple act of a tearful person standing behind a lectern reading from a piece of paper has punctuated my existence.
When David Cameron resigned a decade ago this week after he completely misread the country and didn’t realise we wanted Brexit, I was writing the political history.
As a politics reporter, it was my job to write about the lectern, Cameron’s suit, the impact on the economy, what his wife was wearing, how his allies reacted, pieces about successors vying for the top job, and what Nigel Farage was saying.
It was a busy time, and I don’t recall having a proper day off or night’s sleep for weeks.
And when Rishi Sunak stood up for his first PMQs in October 2022, I was delighted to hear the cheers in the newsroom from the Daily Star reporters nearby as it was mentioned that his predecessor couldn’t survive longer than a lettuce.
With this being, for anyone who has forgotten, a reference to the Star’s stunt where they brilliantly plotted Liz Truss’s demise against the life of a much hardier salad vegetable.
But now my main job is fighting cancer, so, instead of witnessing political history, I’m thinking more about the final date to be written on my gravestone, rather than anything too far into the future.
With the stats suggesting I have two years left to live, I realise that the next person to go to Buckingham Palace to ask the King’s permission to form a government will likely be the last British prime minister I ever see.
And hopefully they’ll be okay. I say okay because after the last handful we’ve had, I’m setting my sights low.
The “last handful” is an interesting point because TV political journalists would have us believe that being on our fifth prime minister since DC quit creates instability. They’ve spent quite a few hours this week asking “ordinary people” whether they think we’ve had too many prime ministers.
This fits into the ridiculously British feeling that people should stay in jobs for as long as possible. Whereas I say if they are tremendously bad at it, then get them out as soon as possible and get someone better in their place.
So, with it seemingly likely that Andy Burnham will be the next PM, I’d be very happy to see the Daily Star considering whether he can survive longer than a beetroot.
Beetroots are much hardier than lettuces and can survive harsh winters. But they are an acquired taste, and most Brits definitely would choose potatoes over that reddish root vegetable.
