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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge 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 step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted 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 major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "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 courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

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