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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken 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 encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to