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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

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

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I aim to be at the forefront," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to improve. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be distinct.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political dangers as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy 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 content with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it before the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably provoke howls that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to