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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted 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 made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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