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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly break for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge 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 not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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