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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would take his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His friendship 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 was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

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