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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

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

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister 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 following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to