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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our conversation was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", insisting nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping 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 be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, does he need a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to