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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth 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 our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship 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 many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to