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Sir Keir Starmer traveled to north Wales on Thursday to announce the construction of a fresh nuclear energy facility. This represents a significant policy event with implications at local and countrywide levels. However, the prime minister did not dedicate much time in Wales to promoting solutions for the UK's energy needs. Instead, he spent it trying to put an end to the Labour leadership briefing row, informing journalists that Downing Street had not undermined the health secretary’s ambitions in recent days.

As such, Sir Keir’s day acted as a microcosm of what his prime ministership has evolved into more generally. On the one hand, he desires his administration to be doing, and to be perceived as performing, important things. Conversely, he is unable to achieve this due to the way he – and, partly, the nation as a whole – now practices politics and government.

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 plain fact is that he could run the government's core far better than he currently does. If he did this, he might find that the nation was in less dismay about his administration than it currently is, and that he was getting his messages across more effectively.

Staffing Issues in No 10

A number of the issues in Downing Street relate to individuals. The personal dynamics of any No 10 regime are hard to know accurately from the exterior. Yet it appears clear that Sir Keir fails to make sound staffing decisions, or maintain them. Maybe he is overly occupied. Possibly he lacks genuine interest. But he needs to improve his performance, avoid slow progress or incompletely.

• He dithered about assigning the crucial role of cabinet secretary to Chris Wormald.
• He made a former official his top aide, then substituted her with Morgan McSweeney.
• He recruited a Treasury figure in from the finance ministry as his deputy.
• His media advisors have chopped and changed.
• Advisors on politics and policy have entered and exited.
• It is a mess.

Structural Challenges at the Heart of the Administration

Every prime minister spend too much time abroad and on foreign affairs, where Sir Keir should delegate more, and too little conversing with MPs and listening to the public. Prime ministers also spend too much time doing media, which Sir Keir worsens by doing it poorly. But premiers cannot claim to be surprised when their political appointees, who tend to be party loyalists or politically ambitious, overstep boundaries or become the story, as Mr McSweeney now has.

The biggest issues, though, are structural. It would be beneficial to believe that Sir Keir read the Institute for Government’s spring 2024 study on reforming the centre of government. His failure to address these matters in the summer or afterward implies he did not. The often abject experience of the Labour administration indicates recommendations like reorganizing the roles of the Cabinet Office and No 10, and dividing the positions of cabinet secretary and head of the civil service, are now urgent.

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

This isn't Sir Keir’s sole responsibility. He stands as the casualty of past failures along with the author of present ones. Yet individuals who expected Sir Keir might get a grip on the centre and take the machinery of government seriously have been let down. Unfortunately, the primary casualty from this failure is Sir Keir personally.