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"I'll remain in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, joking that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be different.

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

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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 risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to