The amped-up strains of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy wailed in from a protester’s speaker outside the security gates, but a few yards farther up Downing Street, Keir Starmer was fighting back tears.
Had he displayed this kind of emotional intensity earlier while in the job, perhaps Starmer wouldn’t have been standing at a lectern outside Number 10 on Monday morning announcing his resignation as UK prime minister.
But there he was, the former human rights lawyer who was routinely written off as the wooden man of British politics, trying hard to conceal the fact he was now essentially a broken man. He almost succeeded in this endeavour, but Starmer’s emotions came gushing out when he mentioned his wife Victoria and their two children.
His voice broke as he strained to maintain his dignity. For those of us standing there just a few feet away, watching yet another UK prime minister’s political career end in brutal failure, it was hard not to feel sorry for the man whose critics even say he is decent.
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The writing had been on the wall for Starmer ever since 3.06am on Friday, when the former mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham was elected the new MP for Makerfield near Wigan, in a byelection. Burnham was coming back to parliament to take Starmer’s job. He didn’t even try to hide it. By Monday morning, Starmer had given up.
Rumours began to swirl among Westminster’s gilded clique from Saturday evening that the UK prime minister could throw in the towel on Monday. The Observer newspaper was the first to run with the story on Saturday night. The subsequent official silence from the Number 10 team throughout Sunday suggested the story was true.
It was obvious from early on Monday morning on Downing Street that something big was about to happen. Usually, arrivals to the street, such as press or UK government officials, have to enter via a small security hut. On Monday, there was a large security marquee set up on Downing Street, with the armed officers clearly expecting a large audience. What for? We were about to find out.
In what is now a grand tradition for big announcements by UK prime ministers, there were hecklers already at the Downing Street gates. When Rishi Sunak announced a general election in the summer of 2024, he did so sodden in the rain while a heckler/protester taunted him by playing D: Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better.
Starmer’s welcoming party included an enthusiastic supporter of the hard-right party Restore Britain, who aurally assailed everybody with exhortations through a loudhailer that Starmer must go. It was obvious that he was about to get his way. Then the anti-Brexit protester, Steve Bray, who would soon play Ode to Joy, arrived. The scene was set.
The assembled press pack numbered in the dozens, perhaps more than 100. All eyes were on the famous black door of Number 10 to see if a lectern would be brought out. It opened at 9am, but it was just to let out Larry the Cat, Downing Street’s chief mouser, who has seen off at least six prime ministers in his time as the UK’s most famous moggie.
Less than a half-hour later, the lectern was dragged out. Starmer emerged at about 9.30am to announce that he was resigning, but would stay in place until September if necessary to facilitate a Labour leadership contest.
If there is no contest, he will go in mid-July when parliament goes into recess from the 16th. A contest would be a shock to everyone. So would anyone apart from Burnham getting the job.
The so-called King of the North looks likely to be on his way to Buckingham Palace in mid-July to ask the real king, Charles III, for permission to form a government.
A Downing Street insider told The Irish Times that everything “happened really quickly” on Monday morning. They said there had been a flurry in the morning as the prime minister arrived back from his weekend Chequers retreat to set up the announcement.
The Number 10 political staff and a few cabinet members who had stayed loyal to Starmer, including David Lammy and Darren Jones, assembled outside to support the exiting prime minister as he informed the British nation of his resignation.
While all this was going on, Burnham was in his old Greater Manchester mayor’s office saying goodbye to the staff there. Then he boarded a train to London Euston – Burnham was coming for Starmer: politically, metaphorically, literally. He was due to be sworn in as an MP at about 2.30pm.
On his way down on the train, Burnham tweeted – or someone did on his behalf – confirmation that he would enter the contest to be the new Labour leader that opens for nominations on July 9th.
In a seemingly co-ordinated and near simultaneous tweet, Wes Streeting, the former health secretary who had been seen as Burnham’s only barely-credible opponent for the job, announced that he was backing the former Manchester mayor.
Was this a deal done between them, or a surrender by Streeting who must have known he could never beat Burnham? We may find out later in the summer, if and when Burnham is doling out big cabinet jobs.
Meanwhile, Burnham arrived at Euston station on a train from Manchester - 25 minutes late. The notoriously unreliable Avanti West Coast service was always going to be one of the more difficult elements of his long political journey back to Westminster.
He managed to give the waiting press the slip and made it to an underpass to catch a cab. The journalists followed. Some highlighted that when he was photographed leaving Manchester he was wearing a t shirt. When he got off the train in London he was wearing a suit and shirt. By the time he made it to the House of Commons to be sworn in as an MP at 2.30pm, he had uncharacteristically donned a tie, the surest sign yet of his designs on power.
As he was sworn in, he was heckled by Tory MP Desmond Swayne who cited the Monty Python line that Burnham was “not the Messiah”.
The new MP shot back another Monty Python line, suggesting he was “just a naughty boy”.
Soon afterwards, a welcoming party of about 200 grinning Labour MPs were snapping selfies with him in Westminster Hall.
If Burnham is not their Messiah, he’ll have to do until their saviour gets there.
The insane carousel of British politics spins ever faster and more dramatically each time. In the week of the tenth anniversary of the Brexit vote, Britain contemplates its seventh prime minister since then.
[ Mark Paul: What would Andy Burnham's Britain look like?Opens in new window ]
