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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "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 facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes 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 these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some demanded denounce it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to