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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove 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 change leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, 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 not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails 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 idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to