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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments 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 circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to