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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before 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 not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me 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 after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to