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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to change. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to