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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although 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 walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to