The Starmer Drama Continues

Greets. Glad you're here. Welcome, my friends, to Wednesday, May 13, 2026. Today is National Apple Pie Day, National Crouton Day, National Fruit Cocktail Day, and International Hummus Day.

Today In History:

1607: English colonists led by John Smith establish Jamestown at a second landing near the James River in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America.

1643: Battle of Grantham: English parliamentary armies beat royalists.

1767: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's first opera, Apollo et Hyacinthus, written when he was 11 years old, premieres in Salzburg.

1787: The First Fleet, headed by Arthur Phillip, sets sail with 11 ships of convicts for Botany Bay, Australia.

1861: Queen Victoria announces Britain's position of neutrality during the U.S. Civil War.

1888: DeWolf Hopper first recites the comedic baseball poem "Casey at the Bat."

1940: Winston Churchill says, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat" in his first speech as Prime Minister to the British House of Commons. This is reenacted in the movie I embedded below.

1942: The helicopter makes its first cross-country flight.

1947: The US Senate approves the Taft-Hartley Act, limiting the power of unions.

1950: Diner's Club issues its first credit cards.

1958: The trademark Velcro is registered.

1979: Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and family sentenced to death in Tehran.

Birthdays today include: Arthur Sullivan, British composer (The Golden Legend; "Onward, Christian Soldiers"), mostly remembered for his comic operas with W.S. Gilbert (The Pirates of Penzance:, H.M.S Pinafore; The Mikado); Bob Dalton, American outlaw of the Old West (leader of the Dalton Gang); Georgios Papanicolaou, Greek-American doctor, cytopathologist, and inventor of the Pap smear; Joe Louis, boxer (world heavyweight champion 1937-49); Bea Arthur, Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress (Mame; Maude; The Golden Girls); Creed Taylor, Grammy Award-winning jazz and bossa nova record producer (Stan Getz, Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Bob James) and label founder (Impulse! Records, CTI Records); Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple cult; Harvey Keitel, actor (Taxi Driver, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs); Ritchie Valens (Valenzuela), rock singer ("Donna," "La Bamba"); Mary Wells, singer ("My Guy," "You Beat Me to the Punch"); "Blue" Lou Marini, saxophonist, arranger, and composer (The Blues Brothers); Stevie Wonder, singer-songwriter ("You Are The Sunshine Of My Life," "Sir Duke"); Dennis Rodman, NBA forward (Chicago Bulls); Stephen Colbert, TV Host; and Darius Rucker, singer (Hootie & the Blowfish - "Only Wanna Be With You").

* * *

I am going to start out doing something I’ve never done before at PJ Media and am unlikely to do again: I’m going to make a movie recommendation. I have previously recommended that Darkest Hour be required viewing for high school students. It's as effective a history lesson as I’ve ever seen. This is what leadership really looks like. It certainly gives us a comparison to the person who, as of this morning, is still residing in #10 Downing Street, and who is the central focus of today's piece. That point aside, it also gives us a feel for British politics. Highly recommended. Run time is two hours and four minutes.

That done, let’s get to today’s events, shall we?

I write frequently about the spectacular drama unfolding in London around the Prime Minister. I predicted Keir Starmer would be gone by now. Yeah, I got that wrong — turns out I underestimated him. My bad. I forgot, however briefly, just how thoroughly power lust can override every other human consideration. I consider Starmer and the turmoil surrounding him to be a prime example of such.

Meanwhile, a rift is actively tearing the Labour Party to pieces. CNN reports that some 100 MPs signed a letter warning against a leadership contest — which Downing Street swears it didn't organize. Yeah. Sure.

This comes as Labour apparatchiks resign their positions in protest of Starmer, one by one. Drip, drip, drip. The real motivation behind opposing a leadership contest isn't hard to figure out: Those MPs are terrified that a no-confidence vote triggers a general election that costs them their cushy seats. Power lust strikes again — shocking, I know.

The unions — which back Labour (obviously), are screaming that Starmer must go before the next general election. They've (I think) correctly diagnosed what I've been saying all along: Starmer leading Labour into the next election would be an extinction-level event for the party.

The polling numbers are absolutely brutal and seem to agree with that assessment. January showed just 18% of Britons holding a favorable view of Starmer, while 75% viewed him unfavorably. Outstanding performance. Truly historic stuff. Not many people have ever managed to poll lower than VD, and yet Starmer has done it. Impressive.

That sustained, grinding unpopularity validates the Unions' call entirely — a Starmer-led Labour ticket would drag every candidate down with him like an anchor made of bad decisions.

The more surprising development is Andy Burnham emerging as a serious candidate for the top job. Burnham has been climbing Labour's ranks for decades, having joined the party at age 15 — because apparently, the British start their political disillusionment early. He served as MP for Leigh from 2001 to 2017, racking up Cabinet roles including Secretary of State for Health, Secretary of State for Culture, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He grabbed national attention during COVID by loudly hammering Boris Johnson's government, earning himself the nickname "King of the North." He's served as Mayor of Manchester since 2017, winning reelection twice.

His platform supports rejoining the EU, a wealth tax, nationalizing industries, and an elected House of Lords. By American standards, this man makes Bernie Sanders look like a hedge fund manager. Welcome to Labour.

One small problem: Labour rules require any PM candidate to hold a seat in Parliament and secure nominations from at least 20% of Labour MPs — at the moment, that works out to 81 members. Burnham holds neither and isn't likely to anytime soon. The party could always pull a move straight from the Democrat playbook and change the rules mid-game, but nobody seems to have the appetite for that right now. Which is why, for all his popularity, Burnham remains an unlikely candidate.

Other names circulating include Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner, who poll lower than Burnham but still comfortably ahead of Starmer — though clearing that bar requires almost no effort whatsoever. Burnham's camp is already warning against a "Streeting Coronation," so even if Streeting emerges as the front-runner, he'll face a fractured party, rather than a united one. Starmer's own supporters apparently see Streeting as the most threatening challenger — which tells you everything about how Starmer's people are spending their time.

And of course, Nigel Farage's Reform Party just ran up enormous victories across the north, making Reform a real power in these events. Which, in turn, means whoever Labour eventually runs in a general election faces long odds, regardless. By statute, that election must happen by August 2029, but it could arrive any time between now and then — ideally, one assumes, after Labour figures out who on earth is actually leading them.

As for Starmer himself, his problems extend well beyond his recent stumbles. His relationship with King Charles has quietly curdled. Shortly after taking office, Starmer proposed stripping hereditary peers from the House of Lords and removing all those over 80 — a move that made Charles visibly uncomfortable, according to royal biographer Angela Levin, who also noted that Starmer "was against the Royal Family for a very long time" before becoming PM. Touching that particular nerve with the head of a hereditary monarchy was, shall we say, not exactly a masterpiece of political awareness.

Then Starmer unilaterally undercut Charles's Canada policy during a meeting with Donald Trump — a particularly clumsy move, given Charles's deep personal ties to Canada, where he serves as head of state.

Now, sources describe "deep discomfort" at the Palace over the King's Speech situation, with royal officials making crystal clear that the Crown wants no part of Labour's ongoing meltdown. Palace officials told Starmer's team directly that protecting the monarch from political exploitation was non-negotiable. One source summarized the Palace's position bluntly: "We do not want to be any part of this conversation — do not bring us into it."

Another source put it even more pointedly:

"It is very embarrassing for the King that his government is such a shambles that he has to read out something that may or may not still be the government's program by the end of the week."

The King's Speech opening Parliament took place today, and I haven't had a chance to review the video of it yet. I'm genuinely curious to watch Charles navigate reading aloud the agenda of a government that may not survive the week. Should be quite the performance.

As a side note, not many of you will know that there's a cat named "Larry" living at 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the PM.

Larry the Cat will have outlasted 5 British PMs. It's time to start asking if the strength and stability we needed has been right in front of us all along. pic.twitter.com/4IZEKMs8kP
— Æthelstan (@TheHauskarl) May 12, 2026

Thought of the Day / parting shot:

In 454 schools across England, white British children make up less than 2% of the school population.

In 72 schools across England, there is not a single white British child in attendance.

This is ethnic cleansing on a devastating scale.
— Mrs B (@attackdogX) May 12, 2026

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Take care today. I'll hope to see you here tomorrow.

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