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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although 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 walk away, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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