Good morning Sensibles,
Last Thursday, I sat down to write this newsletter and had to throw away two drafts before lunchtime. Every time I started a sentence, another piece of news arrived to make it wrong.
By the time I got to draft three, the Health Secretary had resigned, a Labour MP had given up his seat to make way for Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner had been cleared by HMRC, and eighty-seven of Keir Starmer’s own MPs had publicly called for him to go. All in the space of six hours.
You think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. Check the timeline.
This is the most dramatic week in British politics since Liz Truss tried to fight a lettuce and lost. The difference is that this time, the people involved aren’t a joke. They’re serious figures with serious followings, and what happens next will shape the country for the next decade.
Here’s where we actually are.
Wes Streeting has resigned from government but hasn’t formally triggered a leadership challenge. He needs eighty-one Labour MPs to back him. The briefing war suggests he might not yet have them. Andy Burnham is fighting the Makerfield by-election to get back into parliament, which he has to win before he can even stand. Angela Rayner has been cleared by HMRC and told the Guardian she’s ready to run. Ed Miliband is hovering. Keir Starmer is refusing to budge.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage is sitting on fourteen new councils, a five million pound personal donation from a crypto billionaire, and the biggest opportunity any populist British politician has had since Brexit. Every day Labour spends arguing about itself is a day Reform spends building its machine.
I sat down with the Common Sense Podcast this week to do something I haven’t done in a while. A proper listener Q&A. You sent in the questions, and I answered them honestly. Who’ll lead Britain next. Whether the two-party system is finished. Whether Christianity still has a place in public life. What I’d actually say if I had to write a Prime Minister’s first speech for them. The new episode is out now. Go listen.
I’m also working on a proper Editor’s Desk breakdown of the leadership race itself. Who each of the contenders actually is, what they believe, and what each one would mean for the country if they got the keys to Number 10. That drops later this week. Subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already, so you don’t miss it.
But the bigger question, the one I’ve been thinking about all week, isn’t who replaces Starmer.
It’s whether any of them can offer the country a story worth believing.
That’s the thing about this moment. The country isn’t waiting for a better manager. The country is waiting for someone who can explain what Britain is for. What it’s trying to become. Why the next twenty years should look different from the last twenty. Nobody in Westminster seems willing to attempt that question.
Reform has filled the silence with grievance. The Tories have given up trying. Labour is too scared of losing more focus groups to say anything brave. And so the country drifts, the populists get louder, and the people who could lead refuse to lead.
I’m not sure who wins this. I genuinely don’t think anyone knows. What I am sure of is that the country deserves better than what it’s currently being offered.
Reply and tell me who you’d back if you had a vote tomorrow. I read every response.
More soon.
M.T Omoniyi
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