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Sir Keir Starmer traveled to north Wales this past Thursday to declare the building of a fresh nuclear energy facility. This is a major policy announcement with both local and national implications. However, the prime minister did not devote much time in Wales to promoting solutions for the UK's power requirements. Rather, he spent it trying to put an end to the briefing controversy within Labour's leadership, informing journalists that Downing Street had not undermined the health secretary's goals 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 wants his government to be performing, and to be seen to be doing, important things. On the other hand, he is incapable to accomplish this due to the way he – and, to an extent, the country as a whole – now practices political and governmental affairs.

The Prime Minister cannot change the political culture single-handedly, but he can do something about his own role in it. The plain fact is that he could run the government's core far better than he currently does. If he did this, he could discover that the country was in less despair about his government than it currently is, and that he was getting his messages across more effectively.

Staffing Issues in Downing Street

A number of the issues in Downing Street relate to personnel. The interpersonal relations of every Downing Street operation are hard to know accurately from the exterior. But it seems obvious that Sir Keir fails to make good personnel choices, or maintain them. Maybe he is overly occupied. Possibly he lacks genuine interest. However, he must to improve his performance, avoid slow progress or by halves.

• He hesitated about giving the crucial role of top civil servant to a senior official.
• He appointed a former official his chief of staff, 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 chopped and changed.
• Political and policy advisers have come and gone.
• The situation is chaotic.

Structural Challenges at the Heart of the Administration

Every prime minister devote excessive time abroad and on international matters, areas where Sir Keir ought to assign more tasks, and too little talking to parliamentarians and hearing the public. Prime ministers also allocate too much time engaging with the press, which Sir Keir compounds by doing it poorly. But premiers cannot claim to be surprised 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 now has.

The most significant problems, though, are systemic. It would be beneficial to believe that Sir Keir read the a think tank's spring 2024 report on reforming the government's central operations. His failure to address these matters last July or afterward suggests he did not. The often abject experience of the Labour administration suggests recommendations like reorganizing the functions of the central government office and Downing Street, and separating the positions of top official and head of the civil service, are now urgent.

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

This isn't Sir Keir’s sole responsibility. 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 shortcoming is Sir Keir personally.