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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to