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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him 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 poll", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential 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 observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not catching 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 gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to