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"I will be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

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

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

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

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his party members think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration put in place during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

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

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "simply haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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