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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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