Updated

Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 15

No 10: Full Confidence Tops Apple Paid Games Chart, Beating Minecraft With 300 Political Scenarios

Updated

Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 15

No 10: Full Confidence Tops Apple Paid Games Chart, Beating Minecraft With 300 Political Scenarios

Q: Are real politicians secretly using this top-charting mobile game to test their own survival strategies against the public and media?

There is no evidence that real politicians are secretly using **No 10: Full Confidence** to test survival strategies. What is known is much narrower. Developer Benjamin Brewis said he does **not know whether any politicians have played the game at all**. The closest insider feedback came from civil service friends, who told him its depiction of political life was “exactly like this, but worse.” That suggests the satire feels familiar to people around government, but it is not proof that ministers or MPs are using it privately. The game is also not built as a serious forecasting tool. It is a **satirical survival game**, written around more than 300 fictional Westminster crises, many inspired by real political absurdities. Players juggle support from the cabinet, backbenchers, media and public, but the scenarios are designed for comedy and pressure, not for confidential strategy testing. That said, the idea is not entirely far-fetched in a broader sense. Other political games and tools mentioned alongside it, such as **Policy Tester** and the forthcoming **UK Politics Simulator**, lean more toward simulation and voter-response modelling. Those are closer to the kind of products campaigners or politically minded staffers might explore informally. So the best answer is that it is **possible but unverified**. Right now, the public record shows a chart-topping political satire with strong cultural resonance, not a documented secret tool of Westminster survival planning.

3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Aug 15

Manchester-made No 10: Full Confidence has climbed to No. 1 on Apple’s paid games chart, overtaking Minecraft with a simulator that puts players in the role of UK prime minister.
More than 300 handwritten scenarios force players to balance four factions — cabinet, backbenchers, media and the public — with a run ending if any one group turns decisively against them.
Developer Benjamin Brewis said he began building the game in December 2025 as leadership pressure mounted on Keir Starmer, drawing on years of Westminster turmoil for both satire and mechanics.
Five people have occupied No. 10 since 2016, including one prime minister for just 49 days, a churn that academics and developers say is helping turn UK politics into a growing game genre.