Well…maybe not the Titanic…yet!

I could not help noticing on Monday that the Guardian reports that Keir Starmer is making changes to his office. I suspect that many UK Labour supporters are wondering "What took so long?!?". And Marina Hyde is talking about the moves today.

The UK PM and his governing Labour Party have been in public opinion freefall for months. Polls have shown a steady rise for the Reform UK ever since Starmer's overwhelming victory and ascension to power last year.

His government has been plagued by mis-steps, false starts and internal squabbling since the outset of their mandate. It is hard to imagine that the changes in staff around 10 Downing are going to make a big difference. The Guardian header is actually quite amusing if you think about it. One has to wonder just how moving people in from the Chancellor's office will actually help "wrest control" from Treasury.

Governments that are in trouble are often identifiable by moves just like this. It is not hard to think across the years and various governments, of various political stripes, to come up with similar types of actions. Former Canadian PM Brian Mulroney went through Chiefs of Staff, along with other changes in PMO staffing, at a prodigious rate. Didn't make a lot of difference, as what he left behind garnered the PC Party (as it was then known) a net of 2 seats in 1993 when the bell finally tolled. Recent PM Justin Trudeau was never able to escape the rut of falling poll numbers and sliding electoral success, even though many "resets" of Cabinet and messaging were tried over the years from 2019 thru late 2024.

Tinkering around the edges of communications, policy, operations and personnel is rarely a good way to reverse falling popularity. It invariably takes a 'big move". The type of decision just like the aforementioned M. Trudeau provided when he assessed that he simply could not reverse his numbers.

It will be interesting to watch and see if Sir Keir has anything substantive up his sleeve. Something that would show the UK public that he really has their best interests at heart and that he is learning as he goes along.