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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another chat next year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer seems 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.

This appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his fortunes are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to guide the party," he said.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried 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 even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close 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 proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central point is that soon 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 – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been growing pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that followed 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