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"I'll remain in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. 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 stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to