🔗 Share this article

"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, 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 controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to