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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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