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"I will remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, 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 "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to