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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs 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 "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me 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 controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention 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 thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo 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 easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to