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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk 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 idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to