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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" 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 clear political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to 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