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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

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

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me 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 backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails 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 a long period, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to