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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication 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 a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to