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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added 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 major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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