British Prime Ministers

Britain has gone through seven prime ministers in ten years and everyone is wondering why. What makes it so difficult to govern? It's actually simple.

History is a powerful force and we tend to repeat it, sometimes intentionally but often without realizing it. We often reenactment religious patterns of the past in modern secular form. 

The interruption in the monarchy, known as the Interregnum, lasted for eleven years, from 1649 to 1660. It was led by Oliver Cromwell, who felt that it was his divine mission to abolish the monarchy. But the movement eventually fell out of favor and the monarchy was restored.

28 years after the end of the Interregnum, in 1688, came what is known as the Glorious Revolution. King James II was Catholic, and began to favor Catholics. A movement arose against him as the country was now mostly Protestant. His daughter, Mary, was devoutly Protestant and married to William, the Protestant King of the Netherlands. William and Mary were invited to "invade" England and depose James. They were met with a welcoming committee. 

This put England in a personal union with the Netherlands. This means that two countries were ruled by the same king but not that the two are completely united. Scotland was also in a personal union with England, at the time, but the two hadn't yet united politically. William and Mary were so popular that they got a university in Virginia named for them.

The modern political reenactment of the Interregnum is the time of Margaret Thatcher. She was very conservative and considered it her mission to do away with the socialist welfare state, rather than the monarchy. The Interregnum lasted from 1649 to 1660 and the reign of Margaret Thatcher lasted from 1979 to 1990. Both lasted for eleven years, from a year that ends with a 9 to a year that ends with a 0. 

This means that 2018 was 28 years from the end of the modern reenactment of the Interregnum. This is just about when Britain began it's revolving door of prime ministers. It is unconsciously expecting a new prime minister to bring in the Glorious Revolution. Look at the fanfare at the election of Labour in 2024. This was a reenactment of the welcoming committee. But Keir Starmer proved to be an ordinary mortal.