🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back 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.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to