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"I'll remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than 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 unrelated to Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably impatient for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

The prime minister may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his points were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political difficulty, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

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

Starmer attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's intervention 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 notion he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to align more closely with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to