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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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