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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing 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.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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 outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to