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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place 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 firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer 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 inviting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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