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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including 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 controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to