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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

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

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to