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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication 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 thought he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to