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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me 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 after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic 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 former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to