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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk in 2026.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, 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 struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention 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 notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to