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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate 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 struggle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although 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 situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that this year 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 – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising 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 alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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