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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed 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 core message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

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

There has also always been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to