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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

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

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Some demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to