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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for another chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, 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, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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