You’d have thought would have been better than this. Unlike , he arrived in Downing Street with experience of running a major organisation.
He cited his time as director of the as evidence of his managerial expertise. Labour also briefed the Cabinet-in-waiting had learned from when Blair entered No10. We were (un)reliably told they were better prepared, more organised and ready to hit the ground running. The reality, it is commonly acknowledged, is different.
The missteps have been well documented. It has taken far too long to close down the row over free gifts and hospitality. Why was one of the government’s first acts to alienate millions of pensioners by swiping their ? Nor is it a good look to take money off OAPs and then hand your chief of staff a bumper pay deal.
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Lurid briefings which normally happen when an administration is entering its dog days are already a feature of this young government. Even Starmer’s staunchest defenders admit the Downing Street operation is not working as smoothly as they would have hoped. There is a sense that those in charge are still desperately leafing through the instruction manual and, like a novice driver in their first car, they keep flicking the wrong switch, crashing the gears and fumbling over pedals.
Everyone is being blamed and no one is taking responsibility. Some will tell you the fault lies with Starmer for putting the wrong people in the wrong jobs. Or not putting them in jobs at all. The PM has yet to appoint a principal private secretary, a key civil service job, and is losing his Cabinet Secretary. Others talk about the clash of personalities at the heart of No10.
Some say chief of staff Sue Gray has too much influence and head of strategy Morgan McSweeney too little. Or maybe it’s the other way round. There are gripes the PM, for obvious reasons, has been too distracted by foreign affairs at the expense of domestic issues.
The hope among Labour MPs is these are teething problems. Few, if any Prime Ministers, fully understand how to pull the levers of power when they first arrive. Blair admitted he only really mastered the mechanics of office during his second term.
The two ministers most comfortably in their roles, Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband, have previous experience of government. With time, it is argued, the rest of the Cabinet, including the PM, will also bed in and the rookie errors will quickly be forgotten. But it is not good that this month’s Budget is already being talked about as a “relaunch.”
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