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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk 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 many years, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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