Why are we addicted to changing prime ministers?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Keir Starmer is on the brink, as more and more Labour MPs and ministers call for his resignation – less than two years after he walked into Number 10.
He remains defiant (for now), but whatever the fate of the prime minister, his predicament is one we've seen repeated over the past decade in a seemingly never-ending cycle of chopping and changing leaders.
Since David Cameron's resignation in 2016 – after Britain voted to leave the European Union – no prime minister has served a full parliamentary term.
Gareth Barlow speaks to pollster and founder at Merlin Strategy Scarlett Maguire about our impatience with politics and why the country feels ungovernable.
Have you got a question for the show? Email us: why@sky.uk
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sky News, the full story first. |
| 0:09.5 | Hello, I'm Beth Rigby. |
| 0:11.3 | I'm Ruth Davidson and I'm Harriet Harmon. |
| 0:13.3 | We're the host of electoral dysfunction, the politics podcast you need in your rotation. |
| 0:18.3 | Especially if you want to understand how the me elections are reshaping UK politics. |
| 0:23.1 | Order! |
| 0:24.0 | Every week we break down the biggest stories and take you behind the scenes of the major moments. |
| 0:28.3 | And we also have a bit of fun along the way. |
| 0:30.4 | I have lost my sunglasses. |
| 0:32.0 | I left them at the Reform petrol station. |
| 0:34.6 | Electoral dysfunction. |
| 0:35.9 | Listen every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:41.3 | The past 10 years, the UK's got through six prime ministers and seen we might be on to |
| 0:46.1 | number seven, and this is why. |
| 1:00.5 | We should aim to have a new Prime Minister in place by the start of the Conservative Party conference in October. |
| 1:01.7 | I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honour of my life to hold, with enormous |
| 1:07.5 | and enduring gratitude, to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love. |
| 1:14.0 | It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new |
| 1:20.9 | leader of that party and therefore a new Prime Minister. I cannot deliver the mandate on which |
| 1:27.2 | I was elected by the Conservative Party. |
| 1:30.0 | I am resigning. |
| 1:31.2 | I will surely be seeing His Majesty the King to offer my resignation as Prime Minister. |
... |
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