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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once 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 new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major 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 safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

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