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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

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

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I plan to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted 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 made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing tension in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to