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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would take 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 leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to concede 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 walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to