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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although 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 situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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