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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview was successful, he might invite us into Number 10 for another talk next year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a bit of relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to improve?

Leadership Questions

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues think he's not very good at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining no one would strip 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 change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our generation and I plan to lead us," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of encountering pressure from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with greater political vision, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including 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 after an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political risks as the year unfolds. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to