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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what 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.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I aim to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although 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 walk away, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to