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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, 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 – in part. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, 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 talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed 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 bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "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 facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to