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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir 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 obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship 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 was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

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

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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