🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails 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 his career, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been growing desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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