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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to 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.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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