Number 10 Downing Street Is Not Fit for Purpose

Prime Minister Starmer visited Wales' northern region this past Thursday to announce the building of a new nuclear power station. This represents a significant policy event with implications at local and countrywide levels. However, the prime minister did not dedicate extensive time in Wales to promoting answers for the UK's power requirements. Instead, he spent it trying to put an end to the Labour leadership briefing row, informing reporters that Downing Street had not briefed against the health secretary's goals earlier this week.

As such, Sir Keir’s day served as a small-scale example of what his prime ministership has evolved into more generally. Firstly, he desires his administration to be performing, and to be perceived as performing, important things. Conversely, he is incapable to accomplish this due to the way he – and, partly, the country as a whole – now practices politics and government.

The Prime Minister is unable to transform the political culture single-handedly, but he is able to do something about his own role in it. The plain fact is that he could run the centre of government much more effectively than he currently does. If he did this, he could discover that the country was in less dismay about his administration than it is, and that he was communicating his points more successfully.

Personnel Problems in No 10

Some of the issues in Downing Street are about individuals. 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 sound staffing decisions, or stick with them. Perhaps he is too busy. Perhaps he is not really interested. But he needs to up his game, not do things slowly or incompletely.

• He dithered about giving the crucial role of top civil servant to a senior official.
• He made a former official his top aide, then replaced her with a political strategist.
• He recruited a Treasury figure in from the finance ministry as his deputy.
• His media advisors have chopped and changed.
• Political and policy advisers have entered and exited.
• It is a mess.

Systemic Issues at the Core of Government

All premiers spend too much 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. Premiers also spend too much time engaging with the press, which Sir Keir compounds by performing inadequately. Yet leaders cannot express surprise when their politically appointed staff, who tend to be party loyalists or politically ambitious, overstep boundaries or become the focus, as the chief of staff has recently.

The most significant problems, though, are structural. It would be beneficial to believe that Sir Keir reviewed the a think tank's March 2024 study on reforming the government's central operations. His failure to address these matters last July or since suggests he did not. The often abject performance of the Labour administration suggests recommendations like reorganizing the functions of the central government office and Downing Street, and separating the positions 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, all aspects suffer, and much is done badly or neglected.

This is not Sir Keir’s fault alone. He is the victim of past failures along with the author of present ones. Yet individuals who expected Sir Keir might get a grip on the core and take the machinery of government seriously have been let down. Sadly, the biggest loser from this shortcoming is Sir Keir personally.