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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, 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 usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major 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 argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to 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.

There has also always been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to