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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

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

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning 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 admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

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 following an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to