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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although 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 contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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