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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" 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 – came to light.

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

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

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

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to