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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me 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 after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to