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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to