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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "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 perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to