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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" 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 obvious political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to