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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh 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 sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, 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 evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new specific plan to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to