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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

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

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me 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 controversy when past remarks 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 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 obvious political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action 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 always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to 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