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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to