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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

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

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk 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 thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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