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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

There is never any break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and get him out this year.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to change. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to