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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never truly downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth 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.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

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

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to