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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to