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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "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 perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to 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 always been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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