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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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