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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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