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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the interview went well, he might invite us into his official residence for another chat next year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out this year.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the battle of our times and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication 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 notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny 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 results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to