No 10 houses the PM's policy unit, press office, and political operation — roughly 200 staff who manage the relationship between the government and Parliament, the party, and the media.

What happened in the No 10 and Bute House phone call dispute in May 2026?

On 12 May 2026, No 10 and Bute House gave conflicting accounts of a call between Keir Starmer and John Swinney about the Makerfield by-election and the Section 30 demand, deepening the Westminster-Holyrood rift.Source: Lowdown uk-elections-2026 U#8

Who works in 10 Downing Street and what do they do?

No 10 employs roughly 200 staff across three functions: the policy unit (advising the PM on legislation and strategy), the press office (managing media relations), and the political operation (managing the PM's relationship with the party and Parliament).Source: Lowdown uk-elections-2026

Background

Keir Starmer resigned as prime minister and Labour leader on 22 June 2026, four days after Andy Burnham won the Makerfield by-election for Labour with 54.8% of the vote, saying he accepted the Parliamentary Labour Party's private verdict that he was no longer best placed to fight the next election; he remains prime minister in a caretaker capacity. With only Burnham a serious contender for the succession, and Wes Streeting, Douglas Alexander, Darren Jones and David Lammy all endorsing him rather than standing, the NEC's timetable (contenders needed 81 MPs, a fifth of the PLP, by 15 July) points to a Special Conference coronation on 17 July rather than a members' ballot.

The succession followed months of factional conflict over the office. The NEC's 8-1 vote in May to block Burnham from the Makerfield candidate list was widely attributed to direction from Downing Street, prompting eight ministerial resignations and a PLP head-count split 96 to 103. A disputed phone call between No 10 and Bute House on 12 May, during John Swinney's push for a Section 30 order, showed the same sensitivity toward Scotland; Burnham has since hardened that line himself, telling Scottish Labour MPs on 7 July that he will not grant a Section 30 order for a second independence referendum, offering enhanced devolution instead.

Burnham's own leadership pitch reframes Downing Street rather than simply seeking to occupy it: his first major campaign speech, in Manchester on 29 June, proposed 'No. 10 North', a second prime ministerial base outside London, declaring 'Westminster is broken'. Combined with the ~21 May 2026 easing of sanctions on Russian-derived fuel, the episode extends a pattern across the UK elections and oil-markets topics: Downing Street has functioned simultaneously as the seat of executive authority, an active factional operator within the governing party, and, for the first time, the subject of its own likely occupant's public critique.