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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

There is never any break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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 inviting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

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