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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks 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 failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to