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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge 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 sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted 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 controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks 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 ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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