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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about 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 be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

No administration, 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 government is hard, 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 welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to