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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to