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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest 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 difficult end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

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

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

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

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to