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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying 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 disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to