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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk next year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year unfolds. 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to