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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret 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 comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his promise 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 side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to