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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been growing pressure 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 single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to