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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation next year.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

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

True – in part. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments 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 catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to