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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs 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 me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted 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 comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to