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"I will remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to