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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication 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 comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

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