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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than usual, 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 kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

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

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long 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 specific pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to