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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister 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 backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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