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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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 kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to