Starmer has taken a major strategic gamble. We'll know in a matter of months if it's backfired - Analysis by Katherine Forster

This whirlwind visit is, his team assure me, his LAST foreign trip this year.

And they insist his travels are to bring “money and jobs” back to the UK.

The Prime MInister’s been on so many international trips since his election victory just five months ago that even his own team seem to have lost count.

Let’s have a quick recap: He’s been to Paris three times, Berlin three times, the States three times, right round the globe for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting on the Pacific island of Samoa ... take a breath ... Rio for the G20, Budapest, Brussels and Dublin.

And to Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate change summit.

Last week, he visited the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Cyprus.

And now Norway and Estonia.

But today in Norway one of his closest advisers told me it’s all about “investment” and “jobs”.

They said the trips bring tangible benefits in terms of deals, agreements and investments with other countries.

Given that the Government’s central mission is “growth”, and so far there’s precious little sign of it, there is certainly a logic here.

They stress today’s announcement of a Green Industrial Partnership with Norway, is linked to direct investment and jobs in Britain.

Concrete examples they cite include Norwergian energy company Equinor’s investment in the UK’s first Carbon Capture and Storage plant in Teeside, bringing £4billion and thousands of jobs.

Or £77million for Statkraft, grid stability project in Swansea. Or the Green Volt floating windfarm in Scotland, which is to bring almost three thousand jobs.

People around Starmer say he’s not interested in swanning around looking grand. That he’s travelling simply to work hard for Britain.

“He’d much rather be at home and see his children”, they tell me.

That may well be the case but there is a perception amongst many that the PM is simply away far too much. And some suspect he’s developed a taste for this jet-setting lifestyle.

His poll ratings have plumbed new lows today. The Ipsos poll puts his ‘net satisfaction’ rating at -34, the lowest for any PM at this stage in office.

Despite his insane schedule on this trip (and the crazy demands on any PM), the work he’s doing is so far not impressing most of the British public.

He has four and a half years to make Brits feel better off and improve public services.

Time to turn things around. Perhaps. Let’s see if he spends more time at home in 2025.