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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk in 2026.

There is never truly 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 transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir 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.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm 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 disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as planned.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer 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 evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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