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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed 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 kidding themselves if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted 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 following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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