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"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the interview proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for another conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured 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

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a kind of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs think he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem 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 argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

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

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering demands from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

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

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted 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 outcry when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action 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 at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to