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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. 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 situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication 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 a long period, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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