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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning 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 be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to