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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the conversation went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat next year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely 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.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his standing are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would strip his term from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across 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.

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 stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big argument is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is breaking his vow never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to