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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

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 contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning 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 not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a different script?

No administration, 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 hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to