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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention 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 denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to