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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never any time off for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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