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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, 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 even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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