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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

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

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes 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 idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to