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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political risks 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to