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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret 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 outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy 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 at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to