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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several 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.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to