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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any break for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

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

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

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

Sir Keir blamed "the system" 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 takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

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

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to