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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never any time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely 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.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship 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 was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to