Starmer, Streeting and the Cortisol Spikes

Adrenaline rushes and drama are harming our politics

This week’s Starmer-Streeting briefing beef is an odd thing. It upset the already delicate balance within the Labour cabinet for no real reason. From Number 10, it looked desperate and incoherent, making a leadership challenge the main story of the day, which no one really seemed to expect. The PM was left looking like a fool, their Budget preparation was disrupted, and now the leadership looks like more of a hot topic than before.

The eruption speaks to a bigger issue in our politics. The entire system has become increasingly hooked on drama and shenanigans. Journalists and the MPs and hangers-on who feel important when they text them have been sucked into a self-referential entertainment economy that corrodes government and trust. The endless adrenaline spikes are changing the rhythm of government, making it shorter-term, more performative, and less focused.

Westminster has always run partly on gossip, but now it has become a governing principle. The shortening of attention spans, combined with structural changes to the media landscape, has made things increasingly about the “showbiz” and less about the substance. The approach fuels dissatisfaction with our political class and disengagement from politics, as efforts to address the country’s problems slide into the background.