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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to