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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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 courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to