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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is never any break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although 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 scenario under which he would step down, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

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

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from 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