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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk next year.

There is never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put 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 a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify 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 entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to