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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed 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 supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried 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 – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to