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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite encountering pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy 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 a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it prior to 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 reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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