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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any break for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps 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.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement 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 talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication 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 his career, the thought he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also long been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

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