It’s beginning to look a lot like this government is afraid of scrutiny

Postponing local elections for millions of voters, changing the daily Westminster briefing... did someone advise Keir Starmer that the best way to deal with negative media coverage is not to talk to journalists, asks John Rentoul – and that the best way to avoid losing elections is not to hold them?

Downing Street has scrapped its daily afternoon lobby briefing in a move that journalists warn could damage scrutiny of Keir Starmer’s administration (Getty)

Robert Conquest, the great historian of Stalinism, had it right. He said that “the simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies”.

It is the only way to explain why the Labour government has declared war on Westminster journalists and is postponing local elections for millions of voters. It would appear that an agent of the cabal has whispered in Keir Starmer’s ear that the best way to deal with negative media coverage is not to talk to journalists – and that the best way to avoid losing elections is not to hold them.

Splendid, the prime minister seems to have responded: the necessary measures should be put in place at once.

Thus Tim Allan, the No 10 director of communications, wrote to us lobby journalists yesterday. I know Allan as the immensely able adviser to Tony Blair in the early days, before Allan left to make money, thinking Blair a bit too left-wing.

“I am writing to inform you of some changes we are introducing to the lobby system next year,” Allan wrote. The “lobby” refers to accredited journalists who have access to the Palace of Westminster, and their collective noun is derived from the special access they are allowed to the Members’ Lobby outside the Commons chamber.

We are the recipients of twice-daily on-the-record briefings by the prime minister’s spokespeople, every morning and afternoon while the Commons is sitting, and Allan was writing to tell us that the afternoon briefing will be cancelled in the new year.

I will let you in on two of the secrets of the lobby. One is that it doesn’t have any secrets, despite the mystique that surrounds it. It is a bunch of journalists, after all. The other is that the afternoon lobby briefing is no big deal. No 10 press officers hate it because it takes up time and they have to defend an unpopular government, but when they abolish it, they will have to answer lots more phone calls from journalists and repeat all the same information to them individually, which will take up more of their time.

Journalists don’t like it much, either. The Conservative government moved the briefing from a room above the House of Commons to No 9 Downing Street, which was more convenient for the two or three officials giving the briefing, and less convenient for the larger number of journalists who had to walk across the road and go through security at the Downing Street gates.

Downing Street has scrapped its daily afternoon lobby briefing in a move that journalists warn could affect media scrutiny of Keir Starmer’s administration (Getty)

As a result, the briefing is “sparsely attended” in person, as Allan says, although other journalists listen in remotely (they cannot ask questions). But that is a bad reason for cancelling something that is still useful to both sides. Part of what is useful is just the practical information about the prime minister’s (and other ministers’) plans for the day or days ahead, and it is true that it is a meeting that could be an email.

But it is useful to the prime minister in that his spokespeople can give the same comment to everyone at once, instead of having to repeat it to each outlet – and it is useful to journalists because they have the chance to ask questions of senior officials directly, rather than getting a “line” read out by a junior on the phone.

However, the long and the short of it is that it is a disaster for the government. Journalists will mount their high horses of press freedom and accountability, which will be only a little exaggerated, and we will write about how No 10 is afraid of scrutiny.

All prime ministers and their press secretaries go through this cycle. Dominic Cummings tried to split the lobby into trusties and the outer tier, and it didn’t work. He and Lee Cain, his ally, toyed with the idea of daily televised briefings, White House-style, which yielded the disaster of spokesperson Allegra Stratton’s audition, later leaked, in which she didn’t know what to say about a lockdown Christmas party.

But in addition, Starmer has taken the advice from the cabal of his enemies to postpone another set of local elections. On this, he really is taking advice from his enemies, because ministers say that Conservative county councils can ask for elections to be postponed if they think voting will interfere with the reorganisation of local government.

That attempt to blame the Tories for abolishing elections will fail, because it will look to Reform supporters as if the two old parties – the “uniparty” – are conspiring against them. As it is, Reform is set to win big in the elections that will still go ahead (that is, most of them) in May.

Nigel Farage could not have scripted those two announcements better if he had written them himself: hide from journalists’ scrutiny and abolish elections. Conquest might have said it is what Stalin did. As Farage said, it is what dictators do.