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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

There is never truly break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", maintaining nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to improve. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" 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 – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been simmering desire in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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