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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to