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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to