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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never any break for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand 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.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

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

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added 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 revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

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