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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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 courting obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to