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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, 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 allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

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 after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to