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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if our interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

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

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

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

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to