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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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 facing obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to