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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our interview went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, 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 as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires 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 notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it before 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 always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with 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