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"I will be positioned in this position 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 next year.

There is never truly downtime for those in the top job. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his political fate are poised to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted 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 comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also long been growing pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will delight some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to