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"I will remain in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop 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 prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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 after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to