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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk in 2026.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would remove his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across 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 not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret 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 following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

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

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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