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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I aim to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations 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 evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

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