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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree 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 resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including 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 not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his promise 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 own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to