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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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