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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing 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 more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to