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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. 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 improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about 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 be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not 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 stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to