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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega 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 not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted 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 comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk 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 his career, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to