Conspiracy narratives are always circulating in the corridors of Number 10. Studies of British governance have for decades explored the role of unofficial briefings and information leaks to embarrass colleagues or put an issue on the agenda.
Recent allegations of a plot by those close to Keir Starmer sought to uncover an alleged imminent challenge to the Prime Minister’s leadership and focused attention squarely on Wes Streeting, who denied involvement in the plot.
This was a preemptive attack in the form of a briefing strategy to try to avoid a phantom coup. This strange episode quickly faded away. But now that the furore has calmed down, a question arises: what does this tell us about the state of the Starmer government and British politics more generally?
The answer is that it points to the emergence of a new, increasingly paranoid style in British politics, revolving around exaggeration, suspicion and conspiratorial fantasy.
The concept of paranoid style was first developed by historian Richard Hofstadter in relation to American politics, especially in the context of fear of communist sympathies during the early years of the Cold War. Simply put, it describes a model of political reasoning in which everything is viewed through a conspiratorial lens.
All prime ministers are paranoid. This paranoia comes from having to sit and smile at a desk knowing that most of your hyper-competitive colleagues covet your position.
John Grigg’s biographies of the First World War prime minister David Lloyd George suggest that he was generally convinced that his colleagues were always on the verge of deposing him. Anthony Eden was plunged into a paranoid atmosphere in the wake of what became the Suez Canal crisis of 1956, which humiliated Britain globally.
Harold Wilson governed with a deep and persistent distrust of the security services, and in the late 1960s his paranoia levels soared whenever Roy Jenkins received positive reviews for his management of the Treasury. Towards the end of her tenure in No 10, Margaret Thatcher developed a fortress mentality based on the belief that ministers were “not on her side”.
If this is the traditional or “old” style of paranoia, Starmer now projects something very different. Theirs is not a paranoia born primarily of concern about external threats or the insistence of others. It reflects a growing awareness that there is a vacuum at the top of the British government, and that at some point this weakness will create a challenge.
Being a conventional politician benefited Starmer in opposition. Being bland, avoiding controversial topics and promoting pragmatism offered very few arguments to opponents. But there is a widespread feeling in Westminster that, in office, the lack of clear ideological conviction has left the government rudderless and, notably, unable to offer the British public a positive vision of where they want to take the country and why (and at what cost).
It is against this backdrop that Starmer now faces further challenges from grassroots Labor MPs, after introducing an overhaul of the UK’s asylum policies. Not a good position for a prime minister with the worst popularity ratings since polls began.
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Systemic conspiracy
For Hofstadter, a paranoid style was characterized by apocalyptic crisis language, conspiratorial explanations of political events, and the attribution of national decline to occult forces. It implied a moral dualism (“patriots against traitors”) and an existential sense of dispossession (“the country is being stolen from us”).
Do you see the connection with British politics? Do you think I’m paranoid?
This paranoid style is not linked to the alleged clinical or psychological condition of a particular politician. This is systemic conspiracism, not personal suspicion.
It arises from a broader socio-psychological pathology and a collapse of trust in the institutions and processes of democratic politics, combined with the social amplification of siege narratives that constantly promote polarization.
Since Brexit, this paranoid style has become normalized in Britain. A country once famous for its stability, governance, and broadly balanced civic culture is now dominated by a paranoid culture. Unlike historical cases that were limited to individual leaders, this culture is now diffuse, with populist overtones and integrated throughout the political spectrum.
This is the deeper story behind the failed briefings, and it is worrying. It risks creating permission structures for norm-breaking, accelerating radicalization and polarization, weakening political capacity, and fueling a vicious cycle of failure, leading to further paranoia.
The climate of British politics has changed, and therefore continues to change. By recognizing this broader shift, we can better understand the slow death of the Starmer government. The old rules no longer apply, and the “good guys” don’t know how to govern.
*Matthew Flinders is founding director of the Sir Bernard Crick Center for the Public Understanding of Politics at the University of Sheffield.
This text was originally published in The Conversation
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