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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of 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 saggy end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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 general election", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to concede 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 step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to