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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never any time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement 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 talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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 courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy 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 this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to