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

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer 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 inviting clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to