🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" 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 clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication 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 a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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