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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret 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 outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention 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 these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to