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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk next year.

There is never truly break for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, 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 even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to