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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion went well, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for another talk next year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a bit of 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 sluggish conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would take his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit 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 resign, should one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in this much political peril, should he consider a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" 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 dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before 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 simmering desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his pledge never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to