The Allan key: Downing Street loosens lobby relations

The Prime Minister holds a press conference in No.9 Downing Street. The room was refurbished after he took office to change the "Tory" blue backdrop, with the Breakfast Room in No.10 used in the interim. Image: Flickr/No.10

“Scumbag journalists”

That was how now-Baroness Gray described the media briefing against her to colleagues. The remarks were part of a Whitehall spat that would eventually see her premature departure from Number 10 and as Downing Street Chief of Staff. She is far from the first to curse the politicos that circle Whitehall. But unfortunately for the civil-servant-turned-Labour-peer, those same “scumbag journalists” remain ever-present in Westminster. 

Sort of. Westminster loves institutions. It is difficult to go more than a day in the SW1 postcode without seeing the natural affinity that the so-called “blob” has for acronyms, precedent and procedure. So much so, that even those that hold the task of scrutinising such institutions are integrated into the Westminster structure. 

The Westminster Lobby is a unique aspect of British political life. A fixture of national politics for decades, journalists from almost all news outlets spend their days (literally) running between Portcullis House, the namesake Members Lobby and the various cafes and bars of SW1, extracting soundbites, gossip and analysis from a web of staffers, SpAds and MPs of all ranks and parties. They elect a chairperson annually and even have a XI football team that has been regularly competing since 1974. In October, they beat Tory MPs 4-1. 

One one level, this has presented the entire British political operation with an unmatched level of scrutiny. It has also had its fair share of criticism. The use of Lobby passes to access the Parliamentary estate has meant that political coverage has been often restricted to more conventional media outlets— grossly out of character with how the public follow events in the digital age. There have been accusations that the lobby focuses more on moments of day-to-day drama than higher-level political scrutiny— Dominic Cummings has given his fair share of characteristically blunt criticism.

To date, a fixture of the entire operation has revolved around the daily Downing Street briefings. Delivered from Number 9, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson representing the government gives a daily on-the-record ‘lobby briefing’ to journalists, taking questions in White-House press conference style at 11:30am every day. A follow up session (with no limits on questioning) is held at 3:45 on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. When Parliament is in recess, this is cut to once weekly on a Monday. 

This all was until last week. Mere hours before Parliament went into recess in December, Downing Street Director of Communications Tim Allan announced significant changes to the lobby system— cutting the afternoon lobby briefings citing sparse attendance and common repetition of lines from the morning briefing. Instead, ‘occasional’ afternoon press conferences will be given by ministers instead of civil service spokespersons, making the briefings more issue-based rather than a general overview of the government’s work. Morning briefings will continue, but sporadically replaced by the new ministerial briefing format.  

The changes received significant criticism from lobby hacks, including Telegraph, Politico and Mirror journalists— ministerial press conferences are often tightly controlled, whilst the afternoon lobby briefings have allowed for “unrestricted” questioning. 

"Whether the task of running modern government communications is an artform or a non-custodial sentence is difficult to say."

But the changes also come as louder questions are asked over the Government’s ability to communicate its message. Whilst Labour figures are divided on Starmer’s ability as Prime Minister, condemnation of the government’s communication skills is near unanimous. Public polling regularly shows that aspects of Labour’s actions are genuinely popular— but suffer from little to no public awareness. So visceral was the blowback from the Winter Fuel Payments cut that the policy was axed largely on the grounds that it was crowding out any other messaging. 

The government has faced a significant turnover of personnel as well, which has undoubtedly increased the challenge that Labour have in pushing out a long-term narrative. Communications were initially lead by former Brown aide and Director of Communications Matthew Doyle, his deputy Stephanie Driver, and Press Secretary Sophie Nazemi— the only member of Starmer’s top team that survived from the Corbyn era. After a rocky start, in October 2024 former lobby hack James Lyons was onboarded for a year as Director of “Strategic” Communications, taking the leadership count to four. After Doyle departed in March 2025, the Director of Communications role was split into Strategic (Lyons) and Delivery (Driver). Driver departed Downing Street in October 2025 for personal reasons— despite the protestations of McSweeney and Starmer. And when Lyons left in September 2025, he was replaced by Tim Allan, demonstrating an almost complete change in communications personnel in just over a year. 

Allan is no stranger to the Westminster setup. He worked as a researcher to Tony Blair when he was Shadow Home Secretary, before becoming a media aide when Blair won the leadership in 1994. He served as Alastair Campbell’s deputy in government from 1997-1998, before becoming Director of Corporate Communications at BSkyB. In 2001 he founded Portland Communications. 

The veteran comms chief’s moves to restructure Whitehall’s interaction with the Westminster media comes as the government grapples with how best to sell its message. An increasingly consensual idea is taking root in Westminster that the orthodoxy of cosy relations and spinning with broadsheet journalists and broadcasters is no longer fit for the modern media environment. And the fruits of this are already starting to take root. 

Tom Lilywhite, No.10’s former Head of Digital founded the “New Media Unit” in the Cabinet Office, seeking to increase the government’s reach into the digital sphere. In recent weeks the Prime Minister has appeared on multiple podcasts, chatting to social media influencers and even taking them with him to India. He has started a TikTok, a Substack, and made a notably more direct appeal to his social media base, rather than the fly-on-the-wall compilations of footage that have traversed his accounts for the last few years. 

There has also been a tightening of conventional media relations. Following accusations over the Wes Streeting briefings, Morgan McSweeney reportedly agreed with the Prime Minister not to speak to journalists. When No.10 hosted lobby hacks for annual Christmas drinks, McSweeney left the building. Suffice to say, quotes from “friends of McSweeney" or a “senior No.10 official” are expected to drop in quantity. In the Treasury, a tacit acknowledgement of budget leaks has seen a shuffle of personnel, with David Pares, the Prime Minister’s (former) spokesperson returning as Director of Communications, replacing Starmer aide Ben Nunn in a Civil Service capacity. 

It is unclear if Allan’s reforms mark a more structural shift away from the traditional media ‘grid’. For decades, governments have relied on the traditional ‘grid’ of announcements, breadcrumb-ing the media week by week to build the picture of a diverse and busy political project. The week commencing 5th January saw headline announcements on Brexit, the cost of living, road safety, the two-child benefit cap and social media. None of that includes the usual media blowback or the international issues of Ukraine, Venezuela or why the UK helped send a black ops team to capture a Russian vessel. It is difficult to follow at the best of times. 

Given the trend of decreasing attention spans and trust in politics, whether the weekly carpet-bombing of announcements to the lobby is an effective modern communications strategy or a relic of Alistair Campbell’s pre-social media operation is a question that needs to be asked. Public salience tends to coalesce around a few key ideas (immigration, cost of living, public services)— and there is a potent argument that government would be best off creating a “playlist” of core campaigns, rather than the weekly sprinkle, as suggested by Peter Hyman, (and not unlike the current Policy Unit setup). Repetition of briefing lines would be, unfortunately, key. The Covid vaccine rollout was a brilliant example of this. Given the necessity of the rollout, the government’s communications strategy from both a civil service/political side was forcibly shifted to a single targeted issue which was duly delivered. The Hartlepool by-election should tell Labour that the targeted communications strategy, whether inadvertent or not, reaped dividends. 

Whether the task of running modern government communications is an artform or a non-custodial sentence is difficult to say. In a rapidly changing environment as well as a remarkably complicated political situation, there is far from a clear answer as to how the government should interact with the media. Successful democratic accountability, potent narrative building and breadth of appeal all matter. All of this requires changes to the current system to achieve in the modern era. It is unclear whether the lobby changes help or hinder, but the government seems to grasp the problem at hand. As well as just how complicated it is to master. After all, to quote Morgan McSweeney: 

“Beware the politician with simple ideas.”