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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer seems 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 appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the PM is that many of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration implemented during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to