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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change 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 prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of 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 devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is hard, 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 "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

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

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to