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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale 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 poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to