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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat 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 talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – 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 it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to