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"I will remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want 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 step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message 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 – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to