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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and especially 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, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political perils 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 ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

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