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"I will remain in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the interview was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk next year.

There is never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps 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 not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" 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 perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk 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 his career, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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