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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

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

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to