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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

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

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't 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 time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy 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 fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention 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 comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to