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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, 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 occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to