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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

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

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, 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 partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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