Britain is in a doom loop: people mistrust democracy and politicians. I say a hope loop is possible too | Polly Curtis

There are ways to address the lack of faith. And unless Starmer, Burnham or Streeting do that, the issue of who is PM is moot

What happens next? Will Andy Burnham win the Makerfield byelection? Will Keir Starmer fight on? Will Wes Streeting run? After that, can Reform win the next general election? Is the Green bounce real? The politics-as-sports predictions rumble on. One newspaper editor texted me the other day asking who would be prime minister come Christmas, apparently because I was on his “clever list”. “Dunno” I said. “You’re off the list,” he replied.

My fear is that whoever is prime minister by the end of the year, a lot of attention will have been distracted from the underlying problem. Voters are not just giving up on this government, but on democracy itself. This weary, cold scepticism comes through in the polls, the focus groups, and it’s in the look in the electorate’s eyes. Politicians know it and it’s making the country ungovernable.

Polly Curtis is chief executive of Demos. Her latest paper, The New Deal: How to repair the broken relationship between state and citizen, is published today