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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to