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"I will remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship 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 his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to