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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

There is never any break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before 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 done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to