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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although 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 scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing 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 these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with 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