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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our conversation went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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