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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if our interview went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

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

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM 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 outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to