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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, is a different approach required 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 just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk 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 a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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