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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our interview went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, 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 time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former 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 implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to