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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

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

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention 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 at ease with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to