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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

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

But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, 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 even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to