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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

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 following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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 facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to