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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including 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 after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – 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 not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to