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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

There is never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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