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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps 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 – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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