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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another conversation next year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing no one would remove his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to admit 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 resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

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 after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be comfortable 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 we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to