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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our interview went well, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly break for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to