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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged 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, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to