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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, 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 "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on 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 a long period, the thought he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to