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"I will remain in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted 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 blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to