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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal 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 provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially 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 governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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 following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents demanded denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to