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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to