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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer 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 courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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