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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and oust him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, 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 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 resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted 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 – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing 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 such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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