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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. 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 scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to change. He sought to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM 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 following an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action 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 comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to