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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

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

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir 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 courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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