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"I'll be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want 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 a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, 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 combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to