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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

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

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date 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 deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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 only because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me 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 comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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