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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

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

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted 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 full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including 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 after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to