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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

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

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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