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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted 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 previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to