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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to