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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

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

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement 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 integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to