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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the interview went well, he might invite us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his party members believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably anxious for things to change. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration implemented during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core point is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires 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 his career, the notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European market – will probably trigger accusations that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to