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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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