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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

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

True – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed 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 such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to