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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.

There is never truly break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be distinct.

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

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to