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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, adding that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for another chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his fortunes are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with increased political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action prior to the interview. And the administration is likely to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer plan to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy many on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to