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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted 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.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge 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 walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash 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 "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed 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 "career-long champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to