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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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 clear political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to