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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message 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 some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer blamed "the system" for not realising 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 progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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