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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to