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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they believe his standing are set to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the poll", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to improve. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government implemented during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, does he need a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir 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 facing clear political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to