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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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