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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me 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 past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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