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"I will be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the interview went well, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to change. He tried to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His central point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret 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 statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is inviting evident political perils as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to