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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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 courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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