Government since 2010

No party won outright in May 2010, the first time that had happened for thirty-six years, and the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition forming a government put David Cameron in Downing Street at the head of two parties rather than one. Governing by agreement between rivals was unfamiliar here, and it lasted a full term.

What followed reshaped the country's place in the world. The referendum on leaving the European Union was held in 2016, and the result set the UK on the road out of the EU, a departure that took years to negotiate and dominated the politics of the decade around it. Fourteen years of Conservative-led government ended at the next turn of the wheel: 2024 brought the Labour Party under Keir Starmer winning a majority, and with it a single-party government again.