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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its 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 prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content 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 full picture at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to