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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had ended, 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 something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge 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, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal 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 protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to