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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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