Britain | Rules for regicide

How to oust a prime minister

History offers useful lessons for those still plotting to oust Sir Keir Starmer

illustration of Julius Caesar’s assassination: a robed figure with a laurel wreath is being stabbed by several men in white togas on a stone floor, while a modern London skyline with Big Ben in the background
Illustration: Ellie Foreman-Peck
|7 min read

It is haunting season in Westminster. As ever when the mood is mutinous, its denizens are on the lookout for a posse of phantom ministers, sometimes known as the men in grey suits. Rumour holds that in the coming months they may glide into Number 10 and tell Sir Keir Starmer that his time is up. If the past is a guide, though, this ghostly group will not materialise.

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