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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to change. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration implemented during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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 governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to