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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Opponents called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to