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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk in the coming year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for those in the top job. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", maintaining nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, 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 one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

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

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

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from various quarters for a bolder approach, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted 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 made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been simmering tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete plan to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to