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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if our conversation was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are poised to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed long before then – in a mega 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.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to change. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, should he consider a different script?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash 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 failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be comfortable with such action seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been growing tension in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to