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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was far more extended 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 revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he said.

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 throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, does he need 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 governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me 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 controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to