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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to