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"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to