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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems 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 appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty 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 qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political risks 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 a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to