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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation in 2026.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had occurred 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 much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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 – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed 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 such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but we "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to