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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if the interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – 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 walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government implemented during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to