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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

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 tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "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 obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to