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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility 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 coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, 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 following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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