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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance 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 Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, 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 be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me 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 backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not realising 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 friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to