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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to