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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle 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 assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

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