🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation 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 difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

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

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 idea he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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