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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action 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 idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to