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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

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

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, 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 after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to