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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, 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 – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular 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 team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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 courting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to