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"I will remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our interview went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, 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.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted 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 following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication 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 his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to