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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

There is never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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