BRENDAN O’NEILL: Good riddance to Keir Starmer’s tyranny of greyness.

Everything Starmer did was about ‘lowering the temperature’ of the public. His rule laid bare the calculated authoritarianism of a ruling class that considers management of the masses to be the highest goal of public life. From his attack on trial by jury to his mad insistence on bringing in a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’ to his allergic reaction to the public fury over Henry Nowak, he was always driven by a patrician impulse to subdue the popular will. To neutralise political contestation itself in order that the mythical competence of his kind might enjoy free rein. All the civil unrest we’ve seen these past two years – some of it democratic, some of it violent and ugly – is best understood as a fuming reaction against the rule of the boring and its black dream of public disenfranchisement.

And now we have the prospect of prime minister Andy Burnham, the man who edged Starmer out of Downing St with his victory in the Makerfield by-election last week. The elites want Burnham to do what Starmer failed to: quell the ‘mayhem’ of Britain’s resurgent democratic spirit. Only where they thought Starmer’s dearth of charisma might achieve that, now they hope Burnham’s much-hyped charisma will. They’ve tried boring us into submission, now they’ll try Burnhaming us into submission. They’ve learned nothing. Ten years since Brexit and we’re still lumbered with an expert class that is breathtakingly dumb.

And dangerously malevolent:

The thing about Keir Starmer was not only would he allow foreign gangs to rape your daughters, but he’d throw you in jail if you protested on Facebook.

— The Drunk Republican (@DrunkRepub) June 22, 2026