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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, 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 even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" 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 gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes 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 at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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