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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central 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 – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

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

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to