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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

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

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

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