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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso 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 stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to