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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted 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 outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching 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 close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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