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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if the interview was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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