As Britain prepares for another change of Prime Minister, the post-mortems have already begun.

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Commentators are debating Starmer’s policies, political judgement and the decisions that brought his government to an end. Before long the same scrutiny will be directed at his successor.

Those debates matter. But they risk missing a much deeper question. Have we been asking the impossible of our leaders? From artificial intelligence to NHS reform, from defence procurement to energy security, from international finance to cyber security, we increasingly expect one individual to make decisions on subjects that specialists spend entire careers working on.

That expectation reflects one of Britain’s oldest beliefs. For more than five centuries we have admired the talented amateur. In politics, business, the military, or the civil service, we have trusted intelligence and confidence over deep technical expertise. Private schools and universities educated leaders to think broadly rather than become narrow specialists.

For much of Britain’s history, that philosophy worked remarkably well. Meanwhile technology was advancing slowly taking generations to make meaningful progress. Institutions changed gradually. A gifted generalist could acquire enough knowledge to lead across a wide range of disciplines.

That world has disappeared. I realised this early in my own career. When I joined Goldman Sachs after Oxford in 1982, I was asked whether I wanted to work in equities or bonds and to choose between sales or........

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