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"I'll remain in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said 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 major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing clear political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment 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