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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – 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 stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to