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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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