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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying 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.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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 inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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