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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to admit 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, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to