🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would remove 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 replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge 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, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" 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 perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to