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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our interview went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to