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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained 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

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably eager for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship 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 comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to