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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier 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 jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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