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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, 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.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

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

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 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 – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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