Sunday 30 June 2024 08:30 BST
Becoming Prime Minister is a shock. Not so much the moment when he is elected; any sensible Democratic politician knows that polls can be wrong and prepares for all eventualities.
No new prime minister can ever be fully prepared for the demands of his office, which are placed upon him from day one. Among other things, he is taken aside to be briefed on his role in a nuclear war.
The process is particularly challenging in the UK because the change is happening so quickly. There are no weeks of transition like in most other countries. No one else is doing it the way we are.
If Tony Blair said to Alastair Campbell: “Imagine preparing for a new job by traveling around the country for six weeks and then going a few nights without sleep.”
If this general election goes to the usual form of both prime ministers Keir Starmer or prime minister Rishi Sunak will be installed at 10 Downing Street at lunchtime the day after the vote.
Neither of them will have slept the night before. They waited until the early hours for the announcements in their own constituencies and then had to deal with the consequences of the result elsewhere.
Had Sunak kept his feet on the ground, he would undoubtedly have been stunned by the victory as the general expectation was that he would lose.
Re-election as Prime Minister should bring no surprises other than efforts to avoid the elephant traps he has carefully dug for the next Prime Minister, assuming it wouldn’t be him.
First-timer Starmer would face the challenge of taking on a job and a lifestyle that only 56 people have ever experienced before.
Becoming Prime Minister in an election with a change of government party is even rarer. There have been 13 general elections in the last 50 years, but only three transfers of power between Labor and the Conservatives.
Being a senior minister is not adequate preparation for Number 10.
Gordon Brown was for a decade a hugely powerful Chancellor of the Exchequer and regarded himself as a co-Prime Minister, but a few months after he took over the top job, a senior Brownite ruefully confessed to me: ‘We thought it would be like the Treasury, only bigger. That’s just one thing. As Prime Minister, everything comes at you from all sides.’
As well as having tea with Margaret Thatcher, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer also spent his honeymoon dealing with terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow and flash floods in the summer in England.
Unlike Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Edward Heath, Thatcher, John Major, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak, Starmer has never served as a minister in a government.
He shares this lack of experience with David Cameron and Blair, who had already been in parliament for 14 years when he became prime minister and was a shadow minister for 10 years.
Cameron had been an MP for nine years before he was elected prime minister, as had Starmer, who only became an MP in 2015.
Cameron already knew his way around government, having worked as an adviser at Conservative Party headquarters and for senior ministers.
Starmer likes to boast that he had a successful career as a lawyer before entering parliament. He believes running the ‘great organisation’ of the Crown Prosecution Service should be good preparation for the premiership.
Starmer also says he can handle a change in style well, because he has switched from poacher as a lawyer to game warden as director of the Public Prosecution Service.
During elections, a prime minister usually has to switch from campaigning to running a party, a government and a country in no time.
Except for Cameron, who was well prepared thanks to a split parliament and five days of negotiations to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
At least the prime ministers elected by the general election will start with a clean slate of policies and plenty of jobs to hand out.
Blair admits that “the disadvantage of a new government is the lack of experience in governing”, but he claims that “it is also an advantage… we thought the unthinkable. We did the undoable.” His first attempts included moving PMQs to a half-hour session per week and granting independence to the Bank of England.
This baptism of fire and new beginning perhaps explains why the main national leaders of recent years have been Thatcher, Blair and Cameron who were re-elected, rather than those who seized power through internal party political machinations.
Sunak may never join, but Starmer would have a chance to join this premier club, albeit limited by the state of the economy and by the things the Tory campaign has forced him to rule out.
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Incoming Prime Ministers are highly dependent on the staff around them. Someone has to make preparations for the government, which could only take a few days. A leader is concerned with running an election campaign and should not be seen as presumptuous or complacent about victory. Officials and even family members are bashed for saying “when” and not “if” about winning.
Blair is credited with pulling off one of the most successful transitions, thanks in large part to his team. His chief of staff Jonathan Powell and adviser David Miliband secretly drew up a plan in advance for the first 100 days of the government. Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell practically invented the art of political spin and media handling in this country. Anji Hunter and Sally Morgan had the delicate task of liaising with the party and the outside world and managing the appointment of ministers and government advisers. Mistakes are sometimes made in assigning tasks, names can be mixed up, post-its can be left or cell phones can be lost.
Starmer’s key decision in preparing for government was the controversial appointment of a widely respected senior civil servant as his chief of staff.
He has made it clear that Sue Gray will take over from campaign manager Morgan McSweeney from the moment of victory. Gray knows everyone in Whitehall after decades of working there. She is expected to oversee Olly Robbins who replaces Simon Case as Cabinet Secretary. She will also have a decisive say in the appointment of advisers and ministers.
In the past, shadow ministers have had more than a year to hold “access talks” about their plans with officials from relevant government departments. Sunak withheld permission to start this until early this year and has now called a snap election, meaning Labor has had just six months to prepare.
Some of those involved in preparing MPs for government are concerned that they are not as ready as they should be. Starmer has shown he can be ruthless and if he becomes Prime Minister there will likely be nasty shocks for some who now assume they will be ministers in the government. Labor already has about twenty more spokespersons than there are paid ministerial jobs in government.
In Blair’s case, Mandelson says the “real” and “significant” reshuffle came after a year in office.
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The head of government has other unavoidable tasks. Blair had to deal with the death of Princess Diana within months of her election. “Why me?” Truss asked of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, just days into her premiership.
Before the state opening of parliament on July 17, the next prime minister will have to represent Britain at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington between July 9 and 11, with Ukraine at the top of the agenda. A week later he will host the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace – an organization created after Brexit to improve relations between fifty European countries.
Prime Ministers make what are seen as unforced errors – such as Truss’ mini-Budget, Cameron’s Brexit referendum and Blair’s invasion of Iraq. They also have to deal with unforeseen events outside their control, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The shocks of the first few weeks in office are likely to be overshadowed by the shocks of the years to come. No matter how hard they have tried to prepare, whether or not they are ready for it, the job will quickly reveal a prime minister’s strengths and weaknesses.
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