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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire 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 commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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