Britain’s revolving door of prime ministers is not a political crisis. It is a structural one
RIGHT TIMES WITH KATHY GYNGELL
A guest post by Gustavo Jalife
Sir Keir Starmer is gone and already forgotten. The digital world has chewed up and spat out another bureaucrat. His successor, Andy Burnham, the seventh prime minister in just one decade, is on borrowed time too. Ungovernability is the defining mark of the times. And it’s going to get worse.
The resignation itself matters less than what it represents. Starmer was not the cause of Britain’s instability. He is merely its latest victim. The same forces that consumed his predecessors remain in place and continue to grow stronger. The question is not why one prime minister failed, but whether stable government remains possible in the digital age.
For most of modern history, governing was comparatively straightforward. Information travelled slowly. Public debates were filtered through institutions. Newspapers, television and radio were severely controlled by the invisible and relentless hand of the almighty, unchallenged state.
The analogue world imposed strict limits. Governments could pursue long-term policies without facing a new crisis every hour. The public sphere was manageable. Schools, academia, mass media, the entertainment industry and family acted as powerful mechanisms of social discipline. They shaped acceptable language, behaviour, attire and manners. Vast majorities were kept in line with just a whisper. As a result, public institutions possessed a degree of authority that is difficult to imagine now.
Then came the digital revolution. The monopoly on information and education collapsed. Gatekeepers lost control. Today, information moves at a speed that exceeds the capacity of state offices to process it. Every citizen possesses the means to publish, comment, criticise and organise. A minister’s blunder can circle the globe before his office has drafted a response. If analogue meant order, digital means something akin to chaos.
Governments depend upon a minimum level of consensus. They require citizens to accept that institutions are legitimate, that facts can be established and that disputes can be resolved through recognised procedures. Digital communication weakens all three assumptions.
The problem is not that people have become more critical of authority but that authority itself struggles to function when every decision is subjected to immediate and permanent scrutiny by countless observers. The bureaucrat no longer rules. He performs. Governance becomes reactive rather than strategic. Constant turbulence is the trademark of the digital era. ‘Reputation is a delicate thing. A person rises on a word and falls on a syllable,’ says one of the characters in Cosmopolis, a novel that lucidly anticipated the digital vortex.
Britain is hardly unique. Similar patterns can be observed throughout the Western world. Governments rise and fall with increasing frequency. Public dissatisfaction persists regardless of which party holds office. Elections change the occupants of public buildings, but rarely alter the underlying dynamic.
The instability is structural rather than personal. New leaders inherit the same digital environment that destroyed their predecessors. They face the same fragmented electorate, and the same relentless pressure to respond instantly to every development. Different personalities may alter the details. They do not alter the conditions.
Many commentators assume that the solution lies in finding candidates cut from a better cloth. This misunderstands the nature of the problem. A more charismatic leader may survive slightly longer. A more competent administrator may delay failure. Neither can reverse the technological forces reshaping the public arena.
Nor is there any reason to believe that these forces have reached their limit. Artificial intelligence, algorithmic personalisation and increasingly sophisticated digital networks are likely to intensify existing trends. Information will become more abundant and public trust will become harder to sustain.
That is why the resignation of yet another prime minister should not be viewed as an isolated event. It is part of a broader historical transition. Institutions designed for the slow age of newspapers, magazines and broadcast television are attempting to function in an environment that never sleeps, never forgets and works at light speed.
The central question of the 21st century may therefore be simpler than many suppose. It is not which party should rule. It is whether any party can achieve lasting stability under digital conditions.
The age of ungovernability has only just begun.
Be that as it may, in the inevitable end, Starmer wept like a child for what he could not defend like a statesman.
Gustavo Jalife is a bilingual author.
His collection of essays Der Führer is Your Daddy can be read at
https://gjensayos.wordpress.com
(UKR)