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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – 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 more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to