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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

There is never any time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

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

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" 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 progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to