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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, 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 refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend 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 protest, maybe 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 even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable 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 challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges 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 told me 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 backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to