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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes 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 idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to