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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration put in place during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier 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 complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to