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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred 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 usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to