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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, 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 a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted 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 comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires 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 his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to