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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, 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 – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to