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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. 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 better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even 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 controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the 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 decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to