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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime 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 annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

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

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to