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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

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

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details 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 next few days.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

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