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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never any time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

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

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

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

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering tension in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to undo the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to