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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk next year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their first rocky 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 firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to