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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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