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"I will remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if the interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention 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 content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to