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"I will be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

There is never truly break for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to get better?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the PM is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather take a risk and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal 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 possible peace.

His central message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political peril, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, 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 just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of 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 – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk 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 notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

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