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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

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

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

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted 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 controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action 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 at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to