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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to