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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to