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Sir Keir Starmer visited Wales' northern region on Thursday to announce the building 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 devote much time in Wales to advocating answers for the UK's power requirements. Rather, he used the time trying to draw a line under the Labour leadership briefing row, telling reporters that Downing Street had not undermined 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 now become more generally. Firstly, he wants his administration to be doing, and to be perceived as performing, significant actions. Conversely, he is unable to achieve this due to the way he – and, partly, the nation as a whole – now practices political and governmental affairs.

The Prime Minister is unable to transform the political culture on his own, but he can take action about his own role in it. The simple truth is that he could run the government's core far better than he currently does. If he did this, he could discover that the nation was in less dismay about his administration than it is, and that he was communicating his points more effectively.

Staffing Issues in Downing Street

A number of the issues in Number 10 relate to individuals. The personal dynamics of every Downing Street operation are hard to know well from outside. Yet it appears clear that Sir Keir does not 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 giving the key job of top civil servant to a senior official.
• He made Sue Gray his top aide, then substituted her with Morgan McSweeney.
• He brought a Treasury figure in from the finance ministry as his deputy.
• His media advisors have chopped and changed.
• Advisors on politics and policy have come and gone.
• The situation is chaotic.

Systemic Issues at the Core of Government

All premiers devote excessive time overseas and on international matters, areas where Sir Keir ought to assign more tasks, and too little conversing with MPs and listening to the public. Premiers also allocate too much time engaging with the press, which Sir Keir compounds by performing inadequately. But premiers cannot express surprise when their political appointees, who tend to be party loyalists or ambitious in politics, cross lines or become the focus, as the chief of staff now has.

The most significant problems, however, are systemic. It would be good to think that Sir Keir read the Institute for Government’s March 2024 study on reforming the government's central operations. His failure to grip these issues last July or afterward implies he did not. The often abject experience of the Labour administration indicates recommendations like restructuring the roles of the central government office and Downing Street, and dividing the jobs of cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, are currently critical.

The political pre-eminence of PMs far outdistances the assistance provided to them. Consequently, everything currently suffers, and much is done badly or neglected.

This is not Sir Keir’s sole responsibility. He stands as the casualty of previous shortcomings as well as the architect 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 disappointed. Unfortunately, the primary casualty from this failure is Sir Keir personally.