🔗 Share this article

"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

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

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret 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 outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before 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 long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to