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"I will remain in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit 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 a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

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

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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