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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me 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 comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to