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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem 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 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 – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to