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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if 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 generation and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy 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 his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to