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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. 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 circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

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

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on 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 at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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