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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout 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 not about Westminster.

True – 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 stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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