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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

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

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents 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 coming days.

And there has always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking 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 many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to