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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his standing are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly 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 remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to