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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in 2026.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge 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 step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso 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 major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

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