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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

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

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

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

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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 backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk 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 his career, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to 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 long been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to