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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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