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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted 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 following an controversy when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political perils as the year progresses. 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 ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

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