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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

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

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

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

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me 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 controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to