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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

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

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret 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 after an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to