🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would strip his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

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

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, 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 own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to