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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, 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 urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer 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 facing obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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