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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that 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 battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

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

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to