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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another talk next year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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