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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration 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 new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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 following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to