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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem 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 sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister 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 following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to