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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

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

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, 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 – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His big point is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with greater political clarity, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have faltered, including 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 after an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Some wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to