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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally eager for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

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