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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want 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 one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to