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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his standing are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to