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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with increased political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention 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 idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision 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