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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," 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 attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" 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 blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to