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"I will remain in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our discussion went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

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

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

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

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to