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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues 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 electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

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

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "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 friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to