Every time we find ourselves following the proceedings of a ballot taking place before us, we are drawn to recall in parallel a famous saying once uttered by Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during the Second World War — a saying that has echoed ever since and will continue to do so.
Churchill said, in essence, that democracy is not the ideal system of governance for ruling peoples in general, but it is the best system that the philosophers of government across the world have managed to devise.
The meaning embedded in his words was that democracy, as a system of governance, undoubtedly has flaws — many flaws, perhaps — yet the problem facing all manner of governments is that no other system of governance better than democracy exists as yet. It is of course entirely possible that the world may one day arrive at a superior alternative that it has not yet reached, and so, until that day comes, the wager will remain on democracy as the best system available for the time being.
A man like Churchill could not have arrived at this conclusion had he not combined politics and literature in the course of his life. Indeed, when he won the Nobel Prize, he did not receive it as a politician but was awarded it in literature — something that speaks to the depth of his literary gifts, in addition to the political abilities for which his fame spread and by which he became known among people. To this day, the democratic experience in his country is described as the mother of democracies, and it earns that description for no other reason than that it has behind it an extended history of practice on the ground. Democracy may take the form of differing theories and varied — perhaps even conflicting — visions, but before and after all of that, it is practical application on the ground in the lives of peoples and nations.
The English experience is witnessing widespread turbulence these days, following the initiative taken by Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, to step down from his post.
Although the man has barely two years to his name at 10 Downing Street — where the English government is headquartered in the capital of fog — he has found himself, together with the Labour Party in whose name and under whose umbrella he governs, a direct party to a broad political uproar calling for the arrival of a new prime minister under that same Labour umbrella. The name of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester, who has just won a by-election, has been put forward to be the new prime minister who will take Keir Starmer's place.
If the current uproar runs its course and Burnham does indeed succeed Starmer, the new prime minister will be the seventh within a single decade — something that might in itself be taken as a form of political instability, yet it is equally taken, on the other hand, as a high degree of political vitality: one that sees no difficulty in replacing a prime minister who spent no more than two months at the government's residence.
We still remember Lady Liz Truss, who assumed the premiership on 1 September 2022, and had barely entered 10 Downing Street and begun settling in before she found herself called upon to leave the following month, having occupied her seat for no more than fifty days.
If we draw a comparison between her and Margaret Thatcher, for example, we find that Thatcher remained in power for a full 11 years, plus several months. And why should she not have stayed, when she continued throughout to be described as the Iron Lady?
When you seek the reason behind a prime minister's continuation in office there, you find that it comes down to one reason — a single one: the satisfaction of the English citizen with the policies being pursued. The reverse is equally true across the board. Nothing can be said about the reason behind the calls that mounted for Starmer's resignation other than that the public services available to the citizen under his government — and healthcare in particular — are not the services the citizen should be receiving.
There may be other issues that compete with the public services question on the list of reasons for the resignation calls — the issue of immigration or illegal migrants, for instance — but you will find them placed lower on the list, while the question of citizen satisfaction sits near the very top. And you will find that the governing principle is this: an official who is incapable of delivering a better service to the citizen must vacate his place for someone more capable of doing so.
The British democratic experience is replete with lessons, but the most important lesson it holds is that when citizen satisfaction is absent, the prime minister must be absent along with it. What a great lesson in the governance of nations.