THERE are events when you will always remember where you were. The assassination of JFK. The unfolding horror of 9/11. The resignation of Sir Keir Starmer.

To be fair, the last of these happened on a Monday morning seemingly like any other. I was working on the dining room table, which was carved around 1812 and has seen many a prime minister come and go. If it could speak, I wonder how it would rate Starmer in comparison with, say, Gladstone, Disraeli, Churchill?

Perhaps, like me, it would roll its eyes (am I going too far with the anthropomorphism?) and say: “About time, too.” Not because I thought he should, far from it; but because people had been talking about it, loudly, for so long it seemed inevitable. When you become the story, maybe it’s time to go. Why prolong the agony?

Cornwall’s Labour MPs were quick to say nice things about their departing boss – Perran Moon even told Channel 4 people in Cornwall don’t know who Andy Burnham is, which was pushing it somewhat - as were the Liberal Democrats. “It’s a shame,” said Cornwall Council chairman Cllr Rob Nolan told me. “I’m not a Labour voter but … by and large he’s done some good things.”

I felt quite sad too. To me, Starmer had seemed like a decent enough bloke, although Lord knows he didn’t always get it right and has the U-turns to prove it. Taking the Winter Fuel Allowance away from pensioners was never going to be popular; and banging the anti-immigration drum, especially before the council elections, resembled a shameless play for Reform votes that risked alienating native support.

But this? How had Starmer gone from a landslide victory, walking starry-eyed and jubilant through the door to number 10, to this spectacular fall from grace? How had the man who voters felt made Labour electable, after so many years in the wilderness, suddenly become “the UK’s most unpopular prime minister EVER”?

Have we seriously forgotten some of the most egregious crimes of previous leaders, red and blue? What of Tony Blair (the Iraq War), David Cameron (Brexit), Boris Johnson (Partygate) or Liz Truss (Trussonomics)? Do these really pale into insignificance when compared with Keir Starmer’s list of achievements?

My own Facebook feed would suggest not, but that’s probably the algorithm. My own post expressing sympathy had friends concurring, with the occasional note of dissent.

If anything, one of Starmer’s greatest failings was to imagine he could please everyone. That’s impossible, and whichever party feels wronged now has an online megaphone to shout about it at great volume. Starmer has been hounded out by noise.

It was all a bit déjà vu. Ever since Brexit, UK politics has been in turmoil. It’s as if mobile phones and social media have rotted our brains to such an extent, we can’t stomach a leader for more than two years.

Larry the cat will soon be on his sixth owner in a decade – and what an owner that promises to be! The leader of the opposition described Andy Burnham as “a pair of eyelashes and a black T-shirt”. Excuse me while I fall into an Austenesque swoon. All this attention must be simply marvellous for his ego.

Burnham has long been hailed as the potential saviour of the Labour Party, the charismatic personality needed at the top to restore its appeal to the masses. All he needed was a parliamentary seat, and Makerfield obliged. I’m not sure I’d have been too happy if my own MP had stood down to make way for someone with his eye on number 10.

I’m sure Burnham has done fabulous things for Manchester. He might even make a good leader for the rest of the country, given half a chance. It’s the least one can hope for after all this self-inflicted political upheaval.

But I do worry that in being built up so high, he’s being set up to fail. Will he get Big Things done, or will it be a case of same old? No great change is ever effected overnight, and if he disappoints the same way Starmer did, what then?

Some opposition parties have called, vociferously, for a general election. It’s worth pointing out that the Conservatives burned through several leaders without a call to the polls. As the Other Half (OH - the voice of political wisdom in this house) says: “You vote for your MP, the leading party governs for five years, they choose their own leader.”

Mind you, OH also deplores how many northern brogues are used in adverts in order to appeal to the working classes. He forgets he shacked up with a northerner 30 years ago (the edges have been knocked off my accent in that time).

He might have to get used to it if we’re going to be seeing Prime Minister Burnham on the telly more often.