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"I will remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk next year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his standing are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

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

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

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

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

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

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to