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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his political fate are poised to get better?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I aim to lead us," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal 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 partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His central point is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer blamed "procedures" 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 perils as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

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

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the giant economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to