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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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