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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our interview went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

There is never truly break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to