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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails 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 many years, the idea he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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