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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a different script?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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