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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive 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 guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to