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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, 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 partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, 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 after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" 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 clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on 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 many years, the notion he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to