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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is rarely ever downtime 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 precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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