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"I'll remain in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to