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"I'll be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly downtime for those in the top job. In the hour before the interview began, 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 close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

However Sir Keir was having none of it in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing no one would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to argue, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

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

The economy would recover despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political difficulty, does he need a different script?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his team have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance 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 thought he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also consistently been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to