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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge 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, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added 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 stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, 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 outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to