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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "the process" 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 unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects 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 market – will probably provoke protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to