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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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 attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship 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 many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

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