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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, 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 even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time 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 safeguard a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

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

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

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