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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for another chat next year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for those in the top job. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

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

Yet, are he and his allies kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The harsh reality for the leader is that numerous of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip 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 replace its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally eager for things to improve. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that this year the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a bolder approach, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and especially 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 governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific plan to align more closely with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will delight many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to