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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth 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 usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge 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 attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to