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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained 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 Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

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

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

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat 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 full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to