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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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 perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to