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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However 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 no one would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. 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 suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

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

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be comfortable with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

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

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