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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his 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 annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning 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 be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy 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 notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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