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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to