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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major 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 devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

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

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

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted 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 made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing 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.

Having interviewed 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 far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to