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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, 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 – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification 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 occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry 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 catching 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 friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to