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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just 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 charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

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 sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for 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.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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