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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

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

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to