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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship 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 many years, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes 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 probably trigger howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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