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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister 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 backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is facing obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into 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