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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into 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