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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty 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 was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM 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 outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to