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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back 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.

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

And he is facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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