The System Is Breaking and Nobody's Even Pretending to Fix It

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John Major said something this week that nobody wanted to hear: Britain keeps firing prime ministers because politicians have stopped doing the actual job.

He’s right. And it’s not just a British problem.

The former Conservative PM told the BBC that political leaders are letting young people down by refusing to tackle long-term problems. He wasn’t making a partisan point. He was describing a system in freefall—one where the machinery of government has become secondary to the theater of leadership changes, factional battles, and settling scores.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, we’re watching something darker unfold.

Photo by Harrison Haines / Pexels

When Justice Becomes a Tool

Let’s be direct: James Comey’s indictment isn’t really about Comey. It’s about a message.

The timing matters here. Trump fires Bondi as attorney general, names only an interim successor, and suddenly the DOJ moves against a former FBI director. Current and former officials are saying the quiet part out loud now—that Trump has essentially told the Justice Department he will replace anyone who doesn’t execute his “extreme demands.”

This is the weaponization of law enforcement playing out in real time, and it’s being done with almost theatrical obviousness. There’s no pretense anymore. There’s no “we’re following the facts where they lead.” There’s just: do what we want, or you’re next.

Compare this to 2016. Back then, Trump’s threats against Hillary Clinton felt transgressive. Shocking. “Lock her up” was treated like a horrifying departure from norms. By 2025, it’s just Tuesday.

The Comey indictment tells you something crucial: the Justice Department got the message. And they’re complying.

Photo by Andrew Neel / Pexels

The Knife Fight Over Nothing

There’s a bizarre microcosm of this rot playing out in British policing right now.

A knife attack happens. Police respond. They subdue the suspect. Then the Green Party leader criticizes how they did it, and the Met chief has to hold a press conference to defend his officers.

This is what happens when institutions stop trusting each other. The Met doesn’t trust that its officers made a good-faith decision. Political leaders don’t trust that police aren’t overreacting. So instead of moving forward, everyone’s locked in combat over the details.

It’s exhausting. And it accomplishes nothing except signaling that nobody’s got anyone’s back anymore.

The London Fracture

Here’s where it gets interesting for Labour.

London is supposed to be Labour’s stronghold. Instead, it’s exposing the party’s fundamental incoherence. Labour won elections by promising stability and competence. But now they’re fragmented—pulled in different directions by their London base, which isn’t monolithic anymore, and their broader electoral coalition, which demands different things.

This is what happens when a party wins power without having a clear answer to “what are we actually for?” Labour’s London squeeze shows a party that hasn’t decided between being a centrist managerial outfit or something more ideologically coherent.

My read: this will haunt them within 18 months.

The Crypto Mess and the Slippery Slope

The Restore Britain party accepting crypto donations and then having to refund them after a Labour MP raised Electoral Commission concerns seems small. It’s not.

This is the infrastructure of accountability working—barely. Someone raised a concern. The system moved. The problem got fixed.

But notice how close we came to nobody caring. A fringe party accepting sketchy donations wouldn’t have been notable three years ago. Now it barely registers. That normalization is the real danger.

Starmer’s Impossible Problem

The “globalise the intifada” chant controversy puts Starmer in a genuinely difficult position—not because he’s wrong, but because he’s managing a Labour Party where significant factions disagree with him profoundly on the Middle East.

Calling the chant racist and saying it’s making Jews scared: that’s a clear statement. That’s leadership. But it also means Starmer is now in direct conflict with parts of his own coalition. You can’t manage that conflict away.

He has to choose: double down and accept that part of the Labour base will be furious, or hedge, and lose all credibility on the issue. There’s no third option, despite what political advisors will tell you over coffee.

The Real Breakdown

Here’s what ties all of this together, and why it matters:

In functional democracies, there’s a basic agreement that institutions matter more than individual actors. You don’t like how the police handled something? You work through the system. You don’t like government? You vote them out. You’re unhappy with justice decisions? You appeal and trust the courts.

That system requires people to lose sometimes and accept it. That’s the hardest part of democracy, and it’s the first thing to go when things start breaking down.

Britain’s kept changing prime ministers because the system no longer contains disappointment—it just cycles through leaders hoping the next one will magically solve everything. The US is watching its Justice Department become a personal enforcement tool because the basic agreement that law applies equally has eroded.

When institutions stop working, you get two choices: reform them, or weaponize them. We’re watching the world choose the second option.

The Hegseth testimony, the debates over civilian deaths and antisemitic remarks—none of that matters if the underlying assumption has already shifted from “what’s the right choice?” to “whose team are we on?” Once you’ve moved into tribal warfare, facts become ammunition rather than guides.

My Read

I think we’re about 24 months into a structural shift that nobody’s going to reverse quickly. The norms that held the system together—that you don’t prosecute your predecessor, that the Justice Department serves the law rather than the executive, that prime ministers serve longer than 18 months—those are gone.

The question isn’t whether we can go back. We can’t. The question is what replaces those norms, and whether it’ll be something we can actually live with.

My prediction: by Q3 2025, we’ll see a major Western democracy formally abandon one of the old rules—not as a crisis, but as a precedent. And everyone will act like it was inevitable.

What I’m Watching

• Comey’s trial outcome and any subsequent DOJ indictments of Trump-era figures. If Comey gets convicted, we’re in a completely different regime. If he’s acquitted, the DOJ will face credibility collapse. Either way, watch how many more high-profile prosecutions of political opponents get announced in the next 90 days.

• Labour’s London local election performance in May 2025. If they hemorrhage seats to Greens, Lib Dems, or pro-Palestine candidates, Starmer’s authority within his own party collapses. This is the stress test of his leadership.

• Whether a second-tier UK PM gets announced by July 2025. Major’s warning suggests the musical chairs might continue. Watch for signs that backbenchers are already positioning for the next transition.

• The defense production timeline that Trump administration announces. They’re saying weapons production will surge, but the actual delivery dates matter. If munitions don’t arrive for 2-3 years, the policy is theater masquerading as strength. Get the specific numbers.