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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship 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 was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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