🔗 Share this article

Sir Keir Starmer traveled to north Wales on Thursday to announce the construction of a new nuclear power station. This is a significant policy event with implications at local and countrywide levels. However, the prime minister did not devote much time in Wales to advocating answers for the UK's power requirements. Instead, he spent it trying to draw a line under the Labour leadership briefing row, informing journalists that No 10 had not undermined the health secretary’s ambitions earlier this week.

Therefore, Sir Keir’s day acted as a small-scale example of what his prime ministership has evolved into more generally. Firstly, he desires his government to be doing, and to be seen to be doing, important things. Conversely, he is incapable to accomplish this because of the manner he – and, partly, the country more generally – now practices political and governmental affairs.

Sir Keir is unable to change the political culture single-handedly, but he is able to do something about his personal involvement in it. The plain fact is that he could manage the centre of government much more effectively than he does. Should he achieve this, he could discover that the nation was in less dismay about his government than it is, and that he was getting his messages across more effectively.

Staffing Issues in No 10

Some of the problems in Number 10 are about personnel. The personal dynamics of any No 10 regime are difficult to discern accurately from the exterior. But it seems obvious that Sir Keir fails to make good personnel choices, or maintain them. Perhaps he is too busy. Possibly he lacks genuine interest. However, he must to improve his performance, avoid slow progress or incompletely.

• He hesitated about giving the key job of top civil servant to a senior official.
• He made a former official his chief of staff, then replaced her with a political strategist.
• He recruited a Treasury figure in from the finance ministry as his deputy.
• His communications chiefs have chopped and changed.
• Advisors on politics and policy have entered and exited.
• It is a mess.

Structural Challenges at the Heart of Government

Every prime minister spend too much time overseas and on international matters, areas where Sir Keir ought to assign more tasks, and insufficient time talking to parliamentarians and hearing the public. Prime ministers also allocate too much time doing media, which Sir Keir worsens by doing it poorly. But premiers cannot claim to be surprised when their political appointees, who are often party loyalists or ambitious in politics, overstep boundaries or become the focus, as Mr McSweeney now has.

The biggest issues, however, are structural. It would be beneficial to think that Sir Keir read the Institute for Government’s spring 2024 study on overhauling the centre of government. His inability to address these matters last July or afterward implies he did not. The frequently dismal performance of Labour’s time in office indicates IfG proposals like reorganizing the roles of the central government office and No 10, and dividing the positions of cabinet secretary and civil service head, are currently critical.

The political pre-eminence of prime ministers far outdistances the assistance provided to them. As a result, all aspects suffer, and many tasks are poorly executed or neglected.

This is not Sir Keir’s fault alone. He is the casualty of previous shortcomings as well as the architect of current mistakes. Yet individuals who expected Sir Keir would take control of the centre and take the machinery of government seriously have been disappointed. Unfortunately, the primary casualty from this failure is Sir Keir himself.