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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about 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 stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching 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 gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with 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