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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

There is never any downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to