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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to