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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe 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 – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

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