No. 10 Lectern of Lamentation claims 7th victim in 10 years

Keir Starmer became the seventh prime minister in a decade to resign outside the famous black door on Monday morning, in scenes that experts are now classifying as a recurring structural feature of British democracy rather than a series of isolated incidents.

Starmer, who won a landslide election victory less than two years ago on an explicit promise of stability after the chaos of constantly changing leaders, resigned due to the chaos of constantly changing leaders — specifically the imminent arrival of a new one.

The podium, which has now dispatched Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer, and is currently eyeing Andy Burnham across a crowded room, showed no signs of fatigue.

Starmer told reporters he had “heard the answer of his parliamentary party” to the question of whether he should remain, and had accepted it “with good grace” — a phrase that means the same thing as “without good grace” in the realistic dialect spoken outside Number 10.

His likely successor, Andy Burnham, arrived in London by train from Manchester on Monday afternoon having won a specially arranged by-election — a seat vacated for the specific purpose of putting him in Parliament to challenge Starmer, in what historians are calling “technically democracy.”

Kemi Badenoch said the country was not being governed. She was the fifth person to say this while also not governing it.

And now, the lectern is available from July 16 for its next contestant – could you survive the podium?