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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant 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 colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, 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 partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly 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 hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted 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 backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to