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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

There is never truly break for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

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

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," 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 sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister 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 backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to