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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to