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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

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

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set 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 disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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