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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if the interview went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President 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.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to