Becoming prime minister is a shock. Not so much the moment of being elected – any sensible democratic politician knows that opinion polls can be wrong and gets ready for all eventualities.
No incoming prime minister can ever be fully prepared for the demands of the job, placed on them from day one, when – among many other demands – they are taken aside to be briefed about their role in a nuclear war.
The process is particularly challenging in the UK because the change is so quick. There are no weeks of transition as in most other countries. Nobody else does it like us.
Image: Keir Starmer has no experience of government
As Tony Blair remarked to Alastair Campbell: “Imagine preparing for a new job by working flat out travelling the country for six weeks and then go a few nights without sleep.”
If this general election goes to usual form either Prime Minister Keir Starmer or Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be installed in 10 Downing Street by lunchtime the day after the vote.
Neither of them will have had any sleep the night before, waiting for the declarations in their own constituencies into the small hours and then dealing with the fallout from the results elsewhere.
If he has stayed in touch with reality, Sunak would certainly be flabbergasted by victory, given the general expectation that he would lose.
More on Boris Johnson
Related Topics:
Re-election to the job of premier should hold no other surprises beyond trying to step around the elephant traps he has carefully dug for the next prime minister, assuming that it would not be him.
First-timer Starmer would face the challenge of taking on a job and lifestyle which only 56 people have ever experienced before.
Advertisement
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
4:47
Your ultimate UK election guide
Becoming prime minister at an election with a change of governing party is even rarer. There have been 13 general elections in the last 50 years but only three handovers of power between Labour and the Conservatives.
Being a senior minister is not an adequate preparation for Number 10.
Gordon Brown was a hugely powerful chancellor of the exchequer for a decade who regarded himself as a co-prime minister, yet a few months after he took over the top job, a senior Brownite ruefully confessed to me: “We thought it was going to be like the Treasury only bigger. It isn’t. That was handling just one thing. As prime minister everything comes at you from all directions.”
Along with taking tea with Margaret Thatcher, the former finance minister also spent his honeymoon period dealing with terror attacks in London and Glasgow and unexpected summer flooding across England.
Unlike Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Edward Heath, Thatcher, John Major, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak, Starmer has never served in a government as a minister.
Image: Rishi Sunak campaigning
He shares this lack of experience with David Cameron and Blair, who had been in parliament for 14 years when he became prime minister and a shadow minister for 10.
Cameron had been an MP for nine years when elected prime minister, as would be the case for Starmer, who only became an MP in 2015.
Cameron already knew his way around government having worked as an aide in Conservative headquarters and for senior ministers.
Starmer likes to boast that he had a successful career as a lawyer before entering parliament. He believes that running the “big organisation” of the Crown Prosecution Service should be good preparation for the premiership.
Starmer also says he knows how to cope with a change of style because he switched from poacher as a defence barrister to gamekeeper as director of public prosecutions.
A prime minister who comes at a general election usually has to switch in a moment from all-out campaigning to managing a party, a government and a country.
Except for Cameron whose preparations benefitted from a hung parliament and five days of negotiations to set up the coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
At least general election-elected prime ministers start with a clean sheet of policies and with plenty of jobs to hand out.
Image: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Pic: PA
Blair admits “the disadvantage of a new government is lack of experience in governing” but he claims “it is also an advantage… we thought the unthinkable. We did the undoable.” His early gambits included shifting PMQs to one half-hour session a week and granting independence to the Bank of England.
This baptism of fire and new beginning perhaps explains why Thatcher, Blair and Cameron are the significant national leaders of recent years, who won re-election, rather than those who took over power by default of internal party machinations.
Sunak can never be a member but Starmer would have a chance to join this distinguished club, although he is circumscribed by the state of the economy and by the things which Tory campaigning has forced him to rule out.
Spreaker
This content is provided by Spreaker, which may be using cookies and other technologies.
To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.
You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Spreaker cookies or to allow those cookies just once.
You can change your settings at any time via the Privacy Options.
Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Spreaker cookies.
To view this content you can use the button below to allow Spreaker cookies for this session only.
Incoming prime ministers depend heavily on the staff around them. Someone has to make preparations for government which could be only days away. A leader is occupied fighting an election campaign and must not be seen to be presumptuous or complacent about victory. Officials and even family members are slapped down if they slip saying “when” 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 advisor David Miliband secretly drew up a plan in advance for the government’s first 100 days. Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell practically invented the arts of political spinning and media handling in this country. Anji Hunter and Sally Morgan had the delicate task of reaching out to the party and the outside world and managing the appointment of ministers and government advisors. Mistakes are sometimes made when handing out jobs, names may be mixed up, post-it notes dropped or mobile phones mislaid.
Starmer’s key decision in preparation for government was the controversial hiring of a widely respected senior civil servant as his chief of staff.
Image: Liz Truss. Pic: Reuters
He has made it clear that Sue Gray will take over as top dog from campaign director Morgan McSweeney from the moment of victory. Gray knows everyone in Whitehall after decades of working there. She is expected to oversee Olly Robbins replacing Simon Case as cabinet secretary. She will also have a decisive voice over the appointment of advisors and ministers.
In the past, shadow ministers have had more than a year for “access talks” about their plans with officials in relevant government departments. Sunak withheld permission for these to start until early this year and has now called a snap election, meaning Labour has had barely six months to prepare.
Some of those involved in getting MPs ready for government are worried they are not as ready as they should be. Starmer has shown that he can be ruthless and, if he does become prime minister, there are likely to be nasty shocks for some now assuming they will be ministers in government. Labour already have about 20 more “front bench” spokespeople than there are paid ministerial jobs in government.
In Blair’s case, Mandelson says the “real” and “important” reshuffle shake-out took place after a year in office.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
The head of government has other unavoidable duties. Blair had to cope with the death of Princess Diana within months of being elected. “Why me?” Truss asked of the death of Queen Elizabeth II just days into her premiership.
Before the state opening of parliament on 17 July, the next prime minister will have to represent the UK at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington between 9 and 11 July with Ukraine at the top of the agenda. A week later he will host the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace – this organisation came into existence after Brexit to improve relations between 50 European nations.
Follow Sky News on WhatsApp
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Prime ministers make what come to be seen as unforced errors – such as Truss’s mini-budget, Cameron’s Brexit referendum and Blair’s invasion of Iraq. They also have to cope with unforeseen events beyond their control, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The shocks of the first few weeks as prime minister are likely to be dwarfed by the shocks in the years to come. However hard they have tried to prepare, whether or not they are ready, the job will soon find out a prime minister’s strengths and weaknesses.
Crypto lobby group the DeFi Education Fund and the Uniswap Foundation have said the Securities and Exchange Commission should be hands-off on regulating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
The May 27 letter to SEC Crypto Task Force lead Hester Peirce argued that the agency should not treat DAOs under the purview of the securities-defining Howey test if they’re “sufficiently decentralized,” as they are not identifiable and are not a coordinated group.
Instead, the pair said DAOs should be treated as individuals or a group of persons unless proved otherwise.
“If a DAO has a dispersed collection of tokenholders who have the opportunity to actively participate in and govern the DAO and the network, it is sufficiently decentralized such that neither the network token for that DAO, nor transactions in which that network token are the object, should be considered a security.” the letter read.
The letter was issued in response to Peirce’s Feb. 21 statement, which invited comments on crypto.
Favorable regulatory environment
The SEC has flipped on its crypto enforcement actions under the Trump administration, which successfully installed the former crypto lobbyist Paul Atkins to lead the agency.
Atkins has stated that blockchain technology could usher in new forms of market activity.
The following week, Atkins said that the regulator would not stifle innovation and lambasted the Biden administration’s approach to crypto.
In a May 20 SEC oversight hearing, Atkins confirmed that the Crypto Task Force’s first report will be released in the next few months, the group is also holding a series of crypto-related roundtable discussions with industry players.
But new analysis from the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggest that his party’s aim of hiking the personal allowance to £20,000 a year could cost between £50bn to £80bn a year.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
4:45
Will PM’s ‘Farage lite’ strategy work?
Visiting manufacturing workers in the North West, Sir Keir will describe Reform’s economic agenda as a “mad experiment”.
He is expected to say: “In opposition we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick up the bill. We were right – and we were elected to fix that mess.
“Now in government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy.”
More on Labour
Related Topics:
Labour is criticising Mr Farage for betting “that you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it”.
The prime minister will add: “Just like Truss, he is using your family finances, your mortgage, your bills as a gambling chip. The result will be the same. Liz Truss bet the house and lost.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:26
Angela Rayner ‘hoping’ for winter fuel update
Sir Keir is referring to the former prime minister’s mini-budget in 2022, which had proposed abolishing the top 45% rate of income tax.
But this policy, among others, spooked financial markets and led to economic turmoil in the UK – with a dramatic spike in the cost of government borrowing feeding through into interest rates.
Mr Farage has argued that his measures can be paid for by scrapping net zero commitments and ending the use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.
Recent polls have put Labour second behind Reform UK, while the local election results earlier this month saw Mr Farage’s party win a parliamentary by-election, control of 10 councils and two mayoralties, while Labour lost almost 200 seats.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Elon Musk confirmed that he’s quitting as the White House’s government cost-cutting czar after admitting it was an “uphill battle” trying to slash federal jobs and programs.
Musk’s status as a Special Government Employee leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) meant that by law, he could only serve for a maximum of 130 days, which was set to finish on May 30.
Musk confirmed his exit in a May 29 X post, thanking President Donald Trump “for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.” Reuters reported that a White House official said his “off-boarding will begin tonight.”
Musk told The Washington Post for a May 27 report that the “federal bureaucracy situation is much worse” than he expected, and it was “an uphill battle trying to improve things in DC, to say the least.”
In separate comments to CBS, Musk criticized the multi-trillion-dollar tax break package that House Republicans approved on May 22, claiming it would increase the budget deficit and undermine the work that DOGE is doing.
DOGE, which is named after the cryptocurrency, claims to have saved taxpayers $175 billion since Trump’s Jan. 20 return to the White House, a figure heavily disputed by multiple news outlets, which report the figures are overstated, have multiple errors and are inaccurate.
The project’s claimed savings are only 8.5% of Musk’s initial ambition to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, which he later revised down to $150 billion.
According to the Reuters report, DOGE has cut almost 12%, or 260,000, of the 2.3 million federal workforce through layoffs, buyouts and early retirement offers.
Despite the criticisms, Musk said on X that DOGE’s mission will “only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
It comes as a federal judge allowed a lawsuit to proceed that accuses Musk and DOGE of illegally exerting power over government operations.
The lawsuit, filed by 14 states, alleged that Musk and DOGE violated the Constitution by illegally accessing government data systems, terminating federal employees and canceling contracts at federal agencies.
Musk admits he spent too much time in politics
In a May 28 interview with Ars Technica, Musk, the CEO of EV maker Tesla, admitted that he spent “a bit too much time” in politics, which some critics claim has impacted Tesla’s performance.
“I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics,” Musk said. However, he added that the time he spent on DOGE wasn’t as significant as many believed, and he blamed media coverage for overrepresenting his involvement.
“It’s not like I left the companies. It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I’ve reduced that significantly in recent weeks.”
When Musk announced in Tesla’s first quarter report that his time spent on DOGE would drop significantly in May, Tesla (TSLA) shares rose over 5% in after-hours trading, despite the company reporting an 80% drop in net income.
As of March 31, Tesla still held 11,509 Bitcoin (BTC), currently valued at about $1.24 billion.
Tesla shares are still down 5.9% year to date, in part due to Musk diverting his attention away from the company and Tesla’s sales falling considerably in the first quarter.
However, the fall is in line with other Big Tech firms, including Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG), which are also in the red in 2025.