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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge 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 colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed 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 wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

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

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 outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to