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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments 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 evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" 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.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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