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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another chat next year.

There is never any break for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge 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 resign, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM 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 backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to