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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, 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 ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

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

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising 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 progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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