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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations 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 judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

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 challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including 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 courting obvious political perils as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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