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"I will remain in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

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

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though 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 scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention 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 idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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