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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me 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 controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "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 clear political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes 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 such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to