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Prime Minister Starmer traveled to north Wales this past Thursday to reveal the development of a fresh nuclear energy facility. This is a significant policy event with implications at local and countrywide levels. However, the prime minister did not dedicate extensive time in Wales to advocating solutions for the UK's energy needs. Rather, he used the time trying to draw a line under the Labour leadership briefing row, informing reporters that No 10 had not undermined the health secretary’s ambitions earlier this week.

Therefore, Sir Keir’s day served as a small-scale example of what his prime ministership has now become more generally. On the one hand, he wants 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, partly, the country as a whole – now conducts politics and government.

Sir Keir is unable to transform the political culture on his own, but he is able to take action about his own role in it. The plain fact is that he could manage the centre of government much more effectively than he currently does. Should he achieve 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.

Staffing Issues in Downing Street

A number of the problems in Number 10 relate to personnel. The personal dynamics of any No 10 regime are hard to know accurately from the exterior. But it seems obvious that Sir Keir does not make good personnel choices, or stick with them. Perhaps he is too busy. Possibly he lacks genuine interest. 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 appointed Sue Gray his chief of staff, then substituted her with a political strategist.
• He recruited a Treasury figure in from the Treasury as his deputy.
• His communications chiefs have chopped and changed.
• Political and policy advisers have come and gone.
• It is a mess.

Structural Challenges at the Core of the Administration

Every prime minister devote excessive time abroad and on foreign affairs, areas where Sir Keir ought to assign more tasks, and insufficient time conversing with parliamentarians and hearing the citizens. Prime ministers also allocate too much time doing media, which Sir Keir worsens by doing it poorly. But premiers cannot express surprise when their politically appointed staff, who are often party activists or ambitious in politics, cross lines or become the focus, as the chief of staff now has.

The biggest issues, however, are systemic. It would be beneficial to think that Sir Keir reviewed the a think tank's March 2024 report on reforming the government's central operations. His failure to address these matters in the summer or since suggests he did not. The often abject performance of Labour’s time in office suggests recommendations like restructuring the functions of the central government office and No 10, and dividing the jobs of cabinet secretary and civil service head, are currently critical.

The political pre-eminence of prime ministers far outdistances the support available to them. Consequently, everything currently suffers, and many tasks are poorly executed or neglected.

This isn't Sir Keir’s fault alone. He stands as the victim of past failures as well as the architect of present ones. Yet individuals who expected Sir Keir would take control of the core and prioritize governmental structures have been let down. Sadly, the biggest loser from this shortcoming is Sir Keir himself.