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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the discussion went well, 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. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, 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 occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to