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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added 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 partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and especially 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 government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, 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 backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to