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"I'll be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, joking that if the conversation went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.

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

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the battle of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be a change.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government implemented during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me 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 comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president takes on 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 a long period, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been bubbling tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to