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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem 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 sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to