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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk next year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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