Is it bad for democracy to cancel daily press briefings?

David Maddox on Keir Starmer's bid to evade media scrutiny

- David Maddox

It is fair to say that Keir Starmer has not had the best time in the media since he became prime minister on 4 July 2024. So bad have his first 19 months as PM been that he is now on his fourth director of communications in Downing Street.

His decision to try to scrap winter fuel payments for pensioners, briefings from Downing Street against cabinet ministers, botched attempts to reduce the welfare bill, nonstop pre-Budget leaks, and so much more have played into a picture of a man who is simply not up to the job.

However, it seems that Sir Keir has decided not to take a long, hard look at himself and his media operation. Instead of the failure to develop a coherent narrative in government, come up with good news stories or even do the job properly, the prime minister has apparently decided that the problem is that he has had too much media scrutiny.

So just as parliament was clearing out for the Christmas recess, his latest director of communications, Tim Allan, dropped a bombshell. He told the lobby (the collective name for journalists in parliament) that the government was cancelling a large part of its daily media scrutiny.

What are they doing?

Allan, who was a support act during the Tony Blair era, was appointed in September to rescue the dire communications strategy in Starmer’s government. His letter to the lobby laid out his grand vision of improving the prime minister’s media profile.