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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his standing are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

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 following an backlash when statements 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 fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to