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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" 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 risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to