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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

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

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to