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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," 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 across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement 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 offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

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 following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to