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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to get better?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that many of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central point is that this year 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 – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM 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 controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to