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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight 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 scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to