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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue 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 protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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 clear political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

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