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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem 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 attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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 following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 idea he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to