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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our interview went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to acknowledge 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 walk away, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me 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 statements he'd previously made – such as 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 courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

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