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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

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

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes 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 comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to