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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

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 – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication 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 thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to