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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is never any time off for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his political fate are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk 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 remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 backlash when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

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

And there has consistently been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to