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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance 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 was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

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