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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to