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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would take his electoral 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 leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before 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 long been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to