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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to