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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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