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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action 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 comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply 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 more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

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