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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some 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.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

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

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal 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 talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to