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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what 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 considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to