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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

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

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on 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 many years, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

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