Who Will Be the Next Prime Minister of the UK? (English Vocabulary Lesson)

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Hello, my name is Tom Wilkinson and welcome back to the Thinking in English podcast, a podcast for intermediate to advanced level English learners. In 2024, Keir Starmer became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after leading the Labour Party to one of the biggest election victories in modern British history. Just two years later, he has announced his

resignation and Britain is once again preparing for a new leader. Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, the UK has gone through an unusually high number of Prime Ministers. Each has promised to solve the country's problems, but then ended up leaving their role earlier than expected. In fact, this is now the third episode I have made asking the question,

who will be the next Prime Minister of the UK? Episode 161 focused on the race to replace Boris Johnson back in 2022, and episode 302 looked at what might happen if the Conservatives lost power before the 2024 election. Now I'm going to ask the exact same question again, but this time it's the Labour Party

looking for a new leader. So what happened? Why has Keir Starmer resigned after such a convincing election victory? Who is Andy Burnham, the politician who is likely to replace him? What kind of Prime Minister might Andy Burnham be? And why has British politics become so unstable over the past decade? Let's find out and at the same time learn some new English vocabulary

and practice your English listening comprehension. If you want to improve your English speaking skills, the Thinking in English Conversation Club is the perfect place to do it. More information linked in the description or at the end of the episode. Here is today's vocabulary list. Prime Minister. Prime Minister. The Prime Minister or PM is the head of government in a parliamentary

political system. They are responsible for leading the country and the government. For example, the Prime Minister announced his resignation after losing support from his party. Member of Parliament. Member of Parliament. A Member of Parliament or MP is a politician who has been elected to represent a constituency in the House of Commons. For example, every

constituency in the UK elects one Member of Parliament. Resignation. Resignation. The act of officially leaving a job or position. As in, her resignation came after months of political pressure. Referendum. Referendum. A public vote in which citizens decide an important political question directly. For example, in the 2016 referendum, UK voters decided to leave the European Union.

Austerity, austerity, a government policy of reducing public spending to lower debt. As in, many public services were cut during the years of austerity. Constituency, constituency, the geographical area that an MP represents in Parliament. As in, Andy Burnham won the by-election in the constituency of Makerfield.

Devolution. Devolution. The transfer of political powers from a national government to regional or local governments. As in, Andy Burnham supports devolution so cities could have more control over local transport. When Keir Starmer led Labour to victory in the 2024 general election, many people thought Britain

had entered a new political era. After 14 years of Conservative governments, Labour won a huge parliamentary majority. Actually, here I should probably say that in the UK, instead of saying the Conservative Party or the Labour Party or the Liberal Democratic Party. We like to abbreviate it to just Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Reform, Greens. So we like to abbreviate our political

parties. Keir Starmer won the election in 2024 for Labour and he promised that he was going to deliver change. He was going to bring back trust in British politics and maybe bring back some stability to the country. Since 2016, UK politics has been a mess. It's been struggling with arguments about Brexit, economic issues and inflation and then various different political

scandals. And Keir Starmer did have some success. He introduced more rights for workers, he strengthened the UK's immigration system and introduced more support for children. But he is resigning, after less than two years. Why? There wasn't one single event that has caused Starmer to resign. Unlike previous Prime Ministers, including Boris Johnson, whose leadership was

damaged by the Partygate scandal, or Liz Truss, who had terrible economic policies that caused chaos, Starmer's downfall, Starmer's path to resigning was slower. It was the result of different problems that gradually built up. The biggest challenge was the economy. When Labour came to power, when Labour was elected, they inherited an economy that had experienced years of slow growth,

the UK has high public debt and our public services have been struggling. The previous Conservative governments followed a policy known as austerity. Austerity is an economic policy where governments cut spending and sometimes raise taxes to reduce debt. So after years of austerity under Conservative governments, many voters voted for Labour because they wanted more investment

in healthcare, transport, housing, public services. They wanted the government to stop cutting spending and to start spending more. But Starmer's government had issues. Basically, there wasn't enough money to do everything that people wanted without borrowing more money or raising taxes. So Labour often appeared quite cautious. They didn't seem very ambitious.

Several government decisions were very unpopular as well. Labour supporters were angered by plans to reform disability benefits. The government was criticised for their plans to change certain benefits for old people. And then there were some big political controversies.

Starmer was criticised for accepting gifts from wealthy donors