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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close 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 done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as 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 more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to