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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, adding that if our interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they believe his fortunes are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would take his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the fight of our generation and I aim to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

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 backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on 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 a long period, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to