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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some a rest 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 saggy end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "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 risks as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also always been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to