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"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our discussion went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

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

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration implemented during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

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

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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