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Prime Minister Starmer visited north Wales this past Thursday to announce the building of a new nuclear power station. This is a major policy announcement with implications at local and countrywide levels. However, the PM did not devote extensive time in Wales to promoting solutions for the UK's energy needs. Instead, he used the time trying to draw a line under the briefing controversy within Labour's leadership, informing reporters that No 10 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 more generally. Firstly, he wants his administration to be performing, and to be perceived as performing, significant actions. Conversely, he is incapable to achieve this because of the way he – and, partly, the nation more generally – now practices politics and government.

Sir Keir cannot transform the political culture single-handedly, but he is able to take action about his own role in it. The plain fact is that he could manage the government's core far better than he does. Should he achieve this, he could discover that the country was in less dismay about his government than it is, and that he was communicating his points more successfully.

Staffing Issues in Downing Street

A number of the issues in Downing Street are about individuals. The personal dynamics of any No 10 regime are hard to know accurately from the exterior. But it seems obvious that Sir Keir fails to make sound staffing decisions, or stick with them. Perhaps he is too busy. Perhaps he is not really interested. But he needs to improve his performance, avoid slow progress or incompletely.

• He dithered about assigning the crucial role 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 media advisors have been frequently replaced.
• Advisors on politics and policy have come and gone.
• It is a mess.

Structural Challenges at the Heart of Government

All premiers devote excessive time abroad and on international matters, areas where Sir Keir ought to assign more tasks, and too little conversing with parliamentarians and hearing the public. Prime ministers also spend too much time engaging with the press, which Sir Keir compounds by performing inadequately. But premiers cannot claim to be surprised when their political appointees, who tend to be party loyalists or politically ambitious, cross lines or become the story, as the chief of staff has recently.

The most significant problems, though, are systemic. It would be good to think that Sir Keir reviewed the a think tank's March 2024 report on reforming the centre of government. His inability to address these matters last July or afterward implies he did not. The often abject experience of the Labour administration suggests recommendations like reorganizing the roles of the central government office and Downing Street, and separating the jobs of cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, are now urgent.

The dominant political role of prime ministers far outdistances the support available to them. Consequently, everything currently suffers, and much is done badly or neglected.

This isn't Sir Keir’s fault alone. He is the casualty of past failures along with the architect of current mistakes. Yet individuals who expected Sir Keir would take control of the core and prioritize governmental structures have been let down. Unfortunately, the biggest loser from this failure is Sir Keir himself.