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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention 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 thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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