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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

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

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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 obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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