The resignation of Keir Starmer has led to comments about the very high turnover of Prime Ministers over the past decade. The only comparable period in British history was almost 200 years ago, in the decade beginning 1827, which witnessed the following changes at the top:-
Lord Liverpool (Tory): retired through ill health, 1827
George Canning (Tory): died in office, 1827
Lord Goderich (Tory): not up to the job; resigned, 1828
Duke of Wellington (Tory): defeated in a Parliamentary vote and lost subsequent general election, 1830
Lord Grey (Whig): retired, 1834
Lord Melbourne (Whig): government disintegrated, 1835
Robert Peel (Tory): lost general election, 1835
Lord Melbourne (Whig): returned, till 1841
The main difference with today is that those years saw a number of crucial reforms enacted, which no-one ever contemplated reversing: Catholic emancipation in Ireland, the great Parliamentary Reform Act, the Municipal Corporations Act, the Poor Law Amendment Act, the abolition of slavery throughout the empire, and so forth; plus, at the same time, a gigantic economic revolution under way in the building of the first railways. The only major change in the past ten years has been Brexit, which around half the country now considers to have been a serious mistake!
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