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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to