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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication 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 this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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