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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

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

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of 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 blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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