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"I will remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

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