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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to