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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what 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 our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

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

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "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 courting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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