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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout 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 – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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 following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to