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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our interview proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just some 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 difficult conclusion of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Leadership Questions

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would take his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite facing pressure from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

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

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, has everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents demanded criticise the action before we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will likely trigger accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

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