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"I'll be sitting in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, noting that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication 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 many years, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to