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"I will remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication 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 many years, 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 champion of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling desire 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 firmer pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

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