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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

There is never truly break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed 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 potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to