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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of 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 governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

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 outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action 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 idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to