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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" 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 perils 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 ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to