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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

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

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big argument 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 some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, 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 government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention 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 notion he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to