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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede 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 step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put 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 closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to