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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge 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 governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale 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 protect a potential peace.

His central message is that this year 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 while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back 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.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to