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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

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

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to