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"I will remain in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never any break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede 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 one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

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

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to