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Sir Keir Starmer visited Wales' northern region on Thursday to announce the building of a fresh nuclear energy facility. This is a significant policy event with both local and national implications. However, the prime minister did not dedicate extensive time in Wales to promoting answers for the UK's energy needs. Instead, he used the time trying to put an end to the briefing controversy within Labour's leadership, telling journalists that Downing Street had not briefed against the health secretary's goals in recent days.

Therefore, Sir Keir’s day served as a small-scale example of what his prime ministership has now become overall. Firstly, he desires his administration to be doing, and to be perceived as performing, significant actions. Conversely, he is incapable to achieve this due to the manner he – and, to an extent, the country more generally – now conducts politics and government.

The Prime Minister is unable to change the political culture single-handedly, but he can take action about his personal involvement in it. The plain fact is that he could run the centre of government far better than he currently does. Should he achieve this, he could discover that the country was in less despair about his administration than it is, and that he was getting his messages across more successfully.

Personnel Problems in Downing Street

A number of the issues in Number 10 relate to individuals. The interpersonal relations of every Downing Street operation are hard to know well from outside. Yet it appears clear that Sir Keir does not make sound staffing decisions, or maintain them. Maybe he is overly occupied. Perhaps he is not really interested. However, he must to improve his performance, not do things slowly or by halves.

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

Structural Challenges at the Core of Government

Every prime minister devote excessive time abroad and on international matters, where Sir Keir should delegate more, and insufficient time talking to parliamentarians and hearing the public. Premiers also spend too much time doing media, which Sir Keir compounds by doing it poorly. Yet leaders cannot express surprise when their politically appointed staff, who tend to be party loyalists or ambitious in politics, overstep boundaries or become the story, as Mr McSweeney now has.

The most significant problems, though, are structural. It would be beneficial to believe that Sir Keir reviewed the Institute for Government’s spring 2024 study on overhauling the centre of government. His inability to address these matters in the summer or afterward suggests he did not. The frequently dismal experience of Labour’s time in office suggests IfG proposals like reorganizing the roles of the central government office and Downing Street, and dividing the jobs of cabinet secretary and civil service head, are now urgent.

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

This is not Sir Keir’s fault alone. He stands as the victim of previous shortcomings as well as the author of present ones. Yet individuals who expected Sir Keir might get a grip on the centre and prioritize governmental structures have been disappointed. Sadly, the primary casualty from this failure is Sir Keir himself.