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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting 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.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I aim to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former 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 "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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