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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though 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 scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect 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 more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to