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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. 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 situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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