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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

However 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 – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. 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 ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer 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 commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to