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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip 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 replace leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated 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 struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including 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 more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks 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 ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to