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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, 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 – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action 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 idea he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to