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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never truly break for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had transpired 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 lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem 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 protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, 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 partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret 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 past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

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

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to