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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy 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 a long period, the notion he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before 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 party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to