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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

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

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "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 friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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