🔗 Share this article

"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance 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 be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

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

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me 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 controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication 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 his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to