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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

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

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication 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 thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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