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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, 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 finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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