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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

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

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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