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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his political fate are about to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely 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 combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 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 – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

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

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

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

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

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