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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to