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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government 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 "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy 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 a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to