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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly 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 challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action 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 idea he would be comfortable with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to