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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning 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 concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry 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 more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action 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 thought he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to