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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth 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.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM 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 backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move 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