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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into his official residence for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his term from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration put in place during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political peril, does he need a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its own way.

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy 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 many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit accusations that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to