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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to