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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our interview went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

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

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" 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 – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to