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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic 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 complication after Trump's military action 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 thought he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to