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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another chat next year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. 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 circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso 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 revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to