🔗 Share this article

"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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