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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated 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 MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted 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 controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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