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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

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

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to