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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained 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 Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said 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 full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

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

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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