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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted 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 – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging 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 delight many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to