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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to