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Sir Keir Starmer visited Wales' northern region on Thursday to reveal the building of a fresh nuclear energy facility. This is a significant policy event with implications at local and countrywide levels. Yet, the PM did not devote extensive time in Wales to advocating solutions for the UK's power requirements. Instead, he spent it attempting to put an end to the briefing controversy within Labour's leadership, informing journalists that No 10 had not undermined the health secretary’s ambitions in recent days.

As such, Sir Keir’s day served as a microcosm of what his prime ministership has evolved into overall. Firstly, he wants his government to be performing, and to be seen to be doing, significant actions. Conversely, he is incapable to achieve this due to the way he – and, to an extent, the nation more generally – now conducts politics and government.

Sir Keir is unable to change the political culture on his own, but he can take action about his personal involvement in it. The plain fact is that he could run the government's core far better than he does. If he did this, he could discover that the country was in less dismay about his administration than it currently is, and that he was getting his messages across more successfully.

Staffing Issues in No 10

A number of the issues in Number 10 relate to individuals. The personal dynamics of any No 10 regime are hard to know well from outside. But it seems obvious that Sir Keir fails to make good personnel choices, or maintain them. Perhaps he is too busy. Perhaps he is not really interested. But he needs to up his game, not do things slowly or by halves.

• He dithered about assigning the crucial role of cabinet secretary to Chris Wormald.
• He made Sue Gray his chief of staff, then replaced her with a political strategist.
• He brought a Treasury figure in from the finance ministry 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 the Administration

All premiers devote excessive time abroad and on foreign affairs, areas where Sir Keir ought to assign more tasks, and insufficient time conversing with parliamentarians and listening to the public. Premiers also allocate too much time engaging with the press, which Sir Keir compounds by doing it poorly. But premiers cannot express surprise when their politically appointed staff, who tend to be party activists or ambitious in politics, overstep boundaries or become the story, as the chief of staff now has.

The biggest issues, though, are structural. It would be beneficial to think that Sir Keir read the a think tank's spring 2024 study on overhauling the government's central operations. His inability to address these matters in the summer or afterward suggests he did not. The often abject experience of the Labour administration suggests IfG proposals like reorganizing the roles of the Cabinet Office and No 10, and separating the jobs of cabinet secretary and civil service head, are now urgent.

The political pre-eminence of PMs far outdistances the assistance provided to them. Consequently, all aspects suffer, and much is done badly or ignored.

This isn't Sir Keir’s sole responsibility. He stands as the victim of past failures along with the author of current mistakes. But those who hoped Sir Keir would take control of the centre and take the machinery of government seriously have been let down. Unfortunately, the biggest loser from this shortcoming is Sir Keir personally.