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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him 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 understandably impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to