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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the interview was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe 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.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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