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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy 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 a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to