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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification 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 stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back 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 attributed it to "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 courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to