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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

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

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me 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 controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to