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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although 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, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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