🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk next year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes 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 comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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