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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to