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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk next year.

There is never any downtime for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action 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 notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to