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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk next year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions 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 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed 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 this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to