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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to