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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely 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 our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 thought he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to