The Labour leadership briefing furore highlights failures at the centre of government. Keir Starmer needs to raise his game
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ir Keir Starmer went to north Wales on Thursday to announce the building of a new nuclear power station. This is a significant policy event, with local and national implications. However, the prime minister did not spend much time in Wales promoting solutions to UK energy needs. Instead, he spent it trying to draw a line under the Labour leadership briefing row, telling reporters that No 10 had not, in fact, briefed against the health secretary’s ambitions earlier this week.
As such, Sir Keir’s day was a microcosm of what his prime ministership has now become more generally. On the one hand, he wants his government to be doing, and to be seen to be doing, important things. On the other hand, he is unable to achieve this because of the way he – and to an extent the country more generally – now does politics and government.
Sir Keir cannot change the culture of politics on his own, but he can do something about his own role in it. The plain fact is that he could run the centre of government far better than he does. If he did this, he might find that the country was in less despair about his government than it is, and that he was getting his messages across more successfully.
