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Sir Keir Starmer traveled to 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. Yet, the PM did not dedicate extensive time in Wales to advocating solutions for the UK's power requirements. Instead, he spent it trying to draw a line under the Labour leadership briefing row, informing journalists that No 10 had not briefed against the health secretary’s ambitions in recent days.

As such, Sir Keir’s day served as a microcosm of what his premiership has now become more generally. On the one hand, he desires his government to be doing, and to be seen to be doing, important things. On the other hand, he is incapable to accomplish this because of the way he – and, to an extent, the nation as a whole – now conducts political and governmental affairs.

Sir Keir is unable to transform 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 much more effectively than he currently does. Should he achieve this, he could discover that the nation was in less despair 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 every Downing Street operation 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. However, he must to up his game, not do things slowly or incompletely.

• He hesitated 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 brought 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 Heart of Government

All premiers devote excessive time overseas and on international matters, areas where Sir Keir ought to assign more tasks, and insufficient time conversing with MPs and listening to the public. Premiers also spend too much time doing media, which Sir Keir compounds by doing it poorly. But premiers cannot express surprise when their political appointees, who are often party loyalists or politically ambitious, overstep boundaries or become the focus, as Mr McSweeney has recently.

The most significant problems, though, are systemic. It would be good to believe that Sir Keir read the a think tank's spring 2024 study on reforming the centre of government. His inability to grip these issues in the summer or afterward implies he did not. The often abject performance of Labour’s time in office suggests IfG proposals like restructuring the functions of the Cabinet Office and No 10, and dividing the jobs of top official and head of the civil service, are now urgent.

The political pre-eminence of PMs greatly exceeds 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 stands as the victim of past failures along with the architect of present ones. But those who hoped Sir Keir would take control of the core and take the machinery of government seriously have been disappointed. Sadly, the biggest loser from this failure is Sir Keir himself.