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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears 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 country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought 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.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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