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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

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

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir 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 obvious political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to