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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had happened 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 ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Party Concerns

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. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "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 obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails 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 a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to