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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", arguing no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The Spring Test

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

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed 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 potential peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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 after an controversy when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "simply lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to