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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation next year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even 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 – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires 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 many years, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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