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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

There is never any break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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