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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

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 controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to