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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale 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 safeguard a possible peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted 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 previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been growing tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to