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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to