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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, 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 held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back 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 "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention 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 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 the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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