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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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