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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to 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 always been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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