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"I will remain in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

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

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal 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 partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted 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 after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

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