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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though 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 situation under which he would step down, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded 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 next few days.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to