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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his fortunes are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may not want 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 step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to