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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk in 2026.

There is never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, 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.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated 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 point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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 inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to