🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened 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

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister 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 excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to