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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer 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.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining 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 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility 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 big argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to