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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to