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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, 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 partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk 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 his career, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to