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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to