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

For a PM, there's never any break for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, 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 be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed 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 potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant 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 an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy 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 comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to