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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added 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 full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted 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 outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes 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 content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to