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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though 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 situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before we spoke. 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 simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to