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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his standing are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into 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