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"I will remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge 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, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to