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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

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

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment 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