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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer 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 courting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk 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 his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to