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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat in 2026.

There is never any break for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to