Why Starmer’s decision to cancel media briefings is bad for democracy

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 prime minister 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, non-stop pre-Budget leaks, and so much more have played into a picture of a man who is simply not up to the job.

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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.

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.

Top item was to cancel what is called “afternoon lobby”. This is a briefing of journalists based in parliament where they get to ask a Downing Street spokesperson for updates from the day and about stories affecting the government.

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In addition, Allan said that “morning lobby” – the even more important morning version of this briefing – will not now happen every day and will sometimes be replaced by an increased number of press conferences with ministers.

This is not just a technical issue within parliament; it is a serious one that waters down the democratic accountability of the government.

Essentially, what the government is doing is massively reducing the level of scrutiny it receives.

Lobby briefings do not have a fixed time limit, as those of us who have sat through particularly long ones can attest, and are always on the record.

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Added to that, every journalist present from whatever publication can get to ask questions on pretty much any topic.

So, to more than halve the number of briefings seriously reduces the ability of the media to hold the government to account.

For years, Downing Street and governments in general have hated the process but always put up with it.

Some may say that increased press conferences are a good replacement. They are not. Press conferences mean only a few chosen journalists will get a question.

Added to that, we saw a new divide-and-rule policy initiated around the Budget when the government only invited a select small group of media organisations to its press conference with the chancellor, and tried to exclude others.

It is worth noting, though, that while previous governments have tried to limit scrutiny from lobby journalists, none has ever gone this far before.

Even Alastair Campbell, Blair’s director of communications, or Lee Cain, under Boris Johnson, never tried to cancel lobby briefings despite having a testy relationship with journalists.

Critics of this current Labour government have often tried to frame it as authoritarian and anti-free speech in nature. While much of this criticism is exaggerated, the cancellation of media scrutiny in parliament will feed into an unfortunate but well-established image Starmer’s government already has.

Taken alongside the twin announcements in the last month that this government plans to cancel the 800-year-old right to a jury trial for many offences and is cancelling next year’s planned local elections it would have lost, the allegation that this is an authoritarian government becomes much harder to dispute.

Never mind the rows over people being arrested for tweets and the tense issue of the Online Safety Act, both of which have soured Britain’s relationship with the US.

On a number of occasions, Starmer has pushed back on allegations over free speech being attacked in the UK, saying that it is alive and well, not least in the presence of Donald Trump. But if he genuinely believes that, he will reverse this ham-fisted attempt to limit press scrutiny and instead welcome it as an essential part of British democracy.