两年，从神坛到出局：斯塔默的黯然离场，与权力的无情

Today, we'll talk about

a story about power.

It takes place in Britain,

and its protagonist

is the UK prime minister, Starmer.

Just this week —

that is, June 22nd —

Starmer formally announced:

he will step down as prime minister,

and, to choose the next leader,

has set out a timetable.

The news itself,

perhaps, was no great surprise.

But when you set it

beside the scene of two years ago,

and look at the two together,

you feel a kind

of almost cruel contrast.

Let us

first return to two years ago.

In 2024,

Starmer reached

the high point of his political career.

In that general election,

he led his party

to win

an overwhelming victory,

taking in parliament

an absolute majority of

more than 170 seats.

It was, in decades,

a triumph rarely seen in Britain.

For a moment,

he was seen almost as

the undisputed lead of British politics

for the next ten years.

He himself boldly declared

that at 10 Downing Street

he would serve a full ten years.

And yet,

history, at times,

is exactly this ironic.

Just two years later,

this former big winner

had arrived at

the point of having to leave.

So,

how exactly did he,

step by step, arrive at today?

The story's first thread

is, throughout, the economy —

ordinary people's wallets.

These two years,

Britain has been mired

in a prolonged cost-of-living crisis.

Prices stayed high,

while wages couldn't keep up,

and ordinary families,

over utilities,

over food and clothing,

counted every penny,

their lives ever more pinched.

When people's lives turn painful,

resentment

naturally turns toward

the man who lives at Downing Street.

To make matters worse,

his government

was caught up, one after another, in

various scandals and policy flip-flops.

Today saying it would do this,

tomorrow changing its mind.

Gradually,

'his word means nothing'

became, for many people,

their impression of him.

This discontent

finally swelled, at the ballot box, into

a raging storm.

In this year's local elections,

his party suffered a crushing defeat,

losing a great many seats and strongholds.

This was nothing less than

voters voting with their feet,

handing him

a resounding 'fail'.

And more deadly than the loss of public support

was the collective turning-away

of those around him.

From this spring on,

the officials who worked with him,

like a line of dominoes,

one after another,

handed in their resignations.

First the minister for health,

then it spread to the whole cabinet.

By this month,

again, over defence spending,

with no agreement ever reached,

the defence secretary,

along with several others,

resigned together.

Mind you,

the world at this time is far from peaceful;

wars and conflicts

make the words 'military spending'

especially sensitive.

And every resignation

was a public declaration:

we

no longer trust

this prime minister.

What crushed him,

perhaps, was also

the rise of another name —

Andy Burnham.

Burnham

is the mayor of a big British city,

and is, right now,

a rare figure in British politics

who still commands sky-high popularity.

Tellingly,

at Starmer's most difficult moment,

someone deliberately

for Burnham,

vacated

a seat back into parliament.

Just this week,

Burnham, with over half the vote,

won that crucial by-election,

returning to

the center of power.

Almost everyone understood

what this move meant:

a more popular man

is, toward the prime minister's chair,

closing in step by step.

Surging public opinion ahead,

a formidable rival behind,

and scattered loyalties within.

In the end,

Starmer

chose to let go.

Speaking of this,

I want, with you,

to talk about

a deeper layer of this.

The man two years ago

standing at the center of the applause,

and the man today

turning away in dejection,

are the same Starmer.

What truly changed

was never any single policy,

but those two words —

the people's hearts.

When power arrives,

it often comes with great fanfare,

making one mistakenly believe

it can be held forever.

But when it exits,

it is often utterly merciless,

and will not, because

of how glorious you once were,

show you

any mercy.

At the end of the show,

I want to leave you

with two questions.

First,

do you think

in judging a leader,

the real measure —

is it the moment he wins power,

or

is it whether, in the hardest valley,

he can

still make people

go on choosing to believe?

Second,

when a person

clearly realizes

that he has already lost

the most important thing — trust —

then,

to turn away

with dignity and clear eyes,

is it, after all, a defeat,

or

another form of

clarity and courage?

These two questions

have no standard answer.

But they

are worth your

thinking about slowly.