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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting 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.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said 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 major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication 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 thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to