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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe 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 although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even 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 following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year progresses. 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 former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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